270    3Sfi 


THE   BEACON   BIOGRAPHIES 

EDITED    BY 

M.  A.  DEWOLFE  HOWE 


FREDERICK  DOUGLASS 

BY 

CHARLES  W.  CHESNUTT 


FREDERICK    DOUGLASS 


CHARLES  W.   CHESNUTT 


BOSTON 

SMALL,  MAYNARD  6f  COMPANY 
MDCCCXCIX 


Copyright,  1899 
By  Small,  Maynard  &f  Company 

(Incorporated} 


Entered  at  Stationers1  Hall 


Press  of 
George  H.  Ellis,  Boston 


The  photogravure  used  as  a  frontispiece 
to  this  volume  is  from  a  photograph  ~by  J.  H. 
Kent,  Rochester,  New  York,  one  of  the 
last  taken  of  Mr.  Douglass.  It  is  the  por 
trait  most  highly  thought  of  by  his  family, 
by  whose  permission  it  is  used.  The  pres 
ent  engraving  is  by  John  Andrew  &  Son, 
Boston. 


M656534 


PREFACE. 

Frederick  Douglass  lived  so  long,  and 
played  so  conspicuous  apart  on  the  world* s 
stage,  that  it  would  be  impossible,  in  a  worlc 
of  the  size  of  this,  to  do  more  than  touch 
upon  the  salient  features  of  his  career,  to 
suggest  the  respects  in  ivhich  he  influenced 
the  course  of  events  in  his  lifetime,  and  to 
epitomize  for  the  readers  of  another  genera 
tion  the  judgment  of  his  contemporaries  as 
to  his  genius  and  his  character. 

Douglass's  fame  as  an  orator  has  long 
been  secure.  His  position  as  the  champion 
of  an  oppressed  race,  and  at  the  same  time 
an  example  of  its  possibilities,  was,  in  his 
own  generation,  as  picturesque  as  it  was 
unique;  and  his  life  may  serve  for  all  time 
as  an  incentive  to  aspiring  souls  who 
would  fight  the  battles  and  win  the  love  of 
mankind.  The  average  American  of  to-day 
who  sees,  when  his  attention  is  called  to  it, 
and  deplores,  if  he  be  a  thoughtful  and  just 
man,  the  deep  undertow  of  race  prejudice 


viii  PEEFACE 

that  retards  the  progress  of  the  colored 
people  of  our  own  generation,  cannot,  except 
by  reading  the  painful  records  of  the  past, 
conceive  of  the  mental  and  spiritual  darkness 
to  which  slavery,  as  the  inexorable  condition 
of  its  existence,  condemned  its  victims  and, 
in  a  less  measure,  their  oppressors,  or  of  the 
blank  wall  of  proscription  and  scorn  by 
which  free  people  of  color  were  shut  up  in 
a  moral  and  social  Ghetto,  the  gates  of  ivhicli 
have  yet  not  been  entirely  torn  down. 

From  this  night  of  slavery  Douglas: 
emerged,  passed  through  the  limbo  of  preju 
dice  which  he  encountered  as  a  freeman,  and 
took  Ms  place  in  history.  "As  few  of  the 
world?  s  great  men  have  ever  had  so  check 
ered  and  diversified  a  career,"  says  Henry 
Wilson,  uso  it  may  at  least  be  plausibly 
claimed  that  no  man  represents  in  himself 
more  conflicting  ideas  and  interests.  His 
life  is,  in  itself,  an  epic  which  finds  few  to 
equal  it  in  the  realms  of  either  romance  0) 
reality."  It  was,  after  all,  no  misfortune 
for  humanity  that  Frederick  Douglass  felt 


PEEFACE  ix 

the  iron  hand  of  slavery  ;  for  his  genius 
changed  the  drawbacks  of  color  and  condi 
tion  into  levers  by  which  he  raised  himself 
and  his  people. 

The  materials  for  this  work  have  been 
near  at  hand,  though  there  is  a  vast  amount 
of  which  lack  of  space  must  prevent  the  use. 
Acknowledgment  is  here  made  to  members 
of  the  Douglass  family  for  aid  in  securing 
the  photograph  from  which  the  frontispiece 
is  reproduced. 

The  more  the  writer  has  studied  the  rec 
ords  of  Douglass* s  life,  the  more  it  Ms  ap 
pealed  to  his  imagination  and  his  heart. 
He  can  claim  no  special  qualification  for 
this  task,  unless  perhaps  it  be  a  profound 
and  in  some  degree  a  personal  sympathy 
with  every  step  of  Douglass's  upward  career. 
Belonging  to  a  later  generation,  he  was  only 
privileged  to  see  the  man  and  hear  the  orator 
after  his  life-work  was  substantially  com 
pleted,  but  often  enough  then  to  appreciate 
something  of  the  strength  and  eloquence 
by  which  he  impressed  his  contemporaries. 


x  PEEFACE 

If  by  this  brief  sketch  the  writer  can  revive 
among  the  readers  of  another  generation  a 
tithe  of  the  interest  that  Douglass  created 
for  himself  when  he  led  the  forlorn  hope  of 
his  race  for  freedom  and  opportunity,  his 
labor  will  be  amply  repaid. 

CHARLES  W.    CHESNUTT. 
CLEVELAND,  October,  1899. 


CHRONOLOGY. 

1817 

Frederick  Douglass  was  born  at  Tucka- 
hoe,  near  Easton,  Talbot  County,  Mary 
land. 

1825 

Was  sent  to  Baltimore  to  live  with  a 
relative  of  his  master. 

1833 

March.  Was  taken  to  St.  Michael' s, 
Maryland,  to  live  again  with  his  master. 

1834 

January.  Was  sent  to  live  with  Edward 
Covey,  slave- breaker,  with  whom  he 
spent  the  year. 

1835-36 

Hired  to  William  Freeland.  Made  an 
unsuccessful  attempt  to  escape  from  slav 
ery.  Was  sent  to  Baltimore  to  learn  the 
ship-calker's  trade. 

1838 

May.  Hired  his  own  time  and  worked  at 
his  trade. 


xii  CHKONOLOGY 

1838  (continued) 

September  3.  Escaped  from  slavery  and 
went  to  New  York  City.  Married  Miss 
Anna  Murray.  Went  to  New  Bedford, 
Massachusetts.  Assumed  the  name  of 
;"  Douglass." 

1841 

Attended  anti- slavery  convention  at 
New  Bedford  and  addressed  the  meeting. 
Was  employed  as  agent  of  the  Massachu 
setts  Anti-slavery  Society. 

1842 

Took  part  in  Bhode  Island  campaign 
against  the  Dorr  constitution.  Lectured 
on  slavery.  Moved  to  Lynn,  Massachu 
setts. 

1843 

Took  part  in  the  famous  i '  One  Hundred 
Conventions ' '  of  the  New  England  Anti- 
slavery  Society. 

1844 

Lectured  with  Pillsbury,  Foster,  and 
others. 


CHEONOLOGY  xiii 

1845 
Published  Frederick  Douglass's  Narrative. 

1845-46 

Visited  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  Ee- 
mained  in  Europe  two  years,  lecturing 
on  slavery  and  other  subjects.  Was 
presented  by  English  friends  with  money 
to  purchase  his  freedom  and  to  establish 
a  newspaper. 

1847 

Eeturned  to  the  United  States.  Moved 
with  his  family  to  Eochester,  New  York. 
Established  the  North  Star,  subsequently 
renamed  Frederick  Douglass's  Paper. 
Visited  John  Brown  at  Springfield, 
Massachusetts. 

1848 
Lectured  on  slavery  and  woman  suffrage. 

1849 

Edited  newspaper.  Lectured  against 
slavery.  Assisted  the  escape  of  fugitive 
slaves. 

1850 
May    7.    Attended     meeting     of    Anti- 


xiv  CHRONOLOGY 

slavery    Society    at     New    York    City. 

Banning  debate  with  Captain  Bynders. 

1852 

Supported  the  Free  Soil  party.  Elected 
delegate  from  Bochester  to  Free  Soil  con 
vention  at  Pittsburg,  Pennsylvania. 
Supported  John  P.  Hale  for  the  Presi 
dency. 

1853 

Visited  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  at  An- 
dover,  Massachusetts,  with  reference  to 
industrial  school  for  colored  youth. 

1854 

Opposed  repeal  of  Missouri  Compromise. 
June  12.  Delivered  commencement  ad 
dress  at  Western  Beserve  College,  Hud 
son,  Ohio. 

1855 

Published  My  Bondage  and  my  Freedom. 
March.  Addressed  the  New  York  legis 
lature. 

1856 

Supported  Fremont,  candidate  of  the 
Bepublican  party. 


CHBOKOLOGY  xv 

1858 

Established  Douglass's  Monthly. 
Entertained  John  Brown  at  Rochester. 

1859 

August    20.     Visited     John     Brown    at 
Chambersburg,   Pennsylvania. 
May  12.    Went   to  Canada  to  avoid  ar 
rest  for  alleged  complicity  in  the  John 
Brown  raid. 

November  12.  Sailed  from  Quebec  for 
England. 

Lectured  and  spoke  in  England  and 
Scotland  for  six  months. 

1860 

Returned  to  the  United  States.  Sup 
ported  Lincoln  for  the  Presidency. 

1862 

Lectured  and  spoke  in  favor  of  the  war 
and  against  slavery. 

1863 

Assisted  in  recruiting  Fifty-fourth  and 
Fifty-fifth  Massachusetts  colored  regi 
ments.  Invited  to  visit  President  Lin 
coln. 


xvi  CHRONOLOGY 

1864 
Supported  Lincoln  for  re-election. 

1866 

Was  active  in  procuring  the  franchise 
for  the  freednten. 

September.  Elected  delegate  from  Roches 
ter  to  National  Loyalists'  Convention  at 
Philadelphia. 

1869 

Moved  to  Washington,  District  of  Co 
lumbia.  Established  the  New  National 
Era. 

1870 

Appointed  secretary  of  the  Santo  Do 
mingo  Commission  by  President  Grant. 

1872 

Appointed  councillor  of  the  District  of 
Columbia.  Elected  presidential  elector  of 
the  State  of  New  York,  and  chosen  by 
the  electoral  college  to  take  the  vote  to 
Washington. 

1876 

Delivered  address  at  unveiling  of  Lincoln 
statue  at  Washington. 


CHRONOLOGY  xvii 

1877 

Appointed  Marshal  of  the  District  of 
Columbia  by  President  Hayes. 

1878 

Visited  his  old  home  in  Maryland  and 
met  his  old  master. 

1879 

Bust  of  Douglass  placed  in  Sibley  Hall, 
of  Eochester  University.  Spoke  against 
the  proposed  negro  exodus  from  the 
South. 

1881 

Appointed  recorder  of  deeds  for  the 
District  of  Columbia. 

1882 

January.    Published   Life   and   Times  of 
Frederick  Douglass,  the  third  and  last  of 
his  autobiographies. 
August  4.  Mrs.  Frederick  Douglass  died. 

1884 

February  6.  Attended  funeral  of  Wendell 
Phillips. 

February  9.  Attended  memorial  meeting 
and  delivered  eulogy  on  Phillips. 


xviii  CHBONOLOGY 

1884  (continued) 
Married  Miss  Helen  Pitts. 

1886 

May  20.  Lectured  on  John  Brown  at 
Music  Hall,  Boston. 

September  11.   Attended  a  dinner  given 
in  his  honor  by  the  Wendell  Phillips 
Club,  Boston. 
September.  Sailed  for  Europe. 

1886-87 

Visited  Great  Britain,  France,  Italy, 
Greece,  and  Egypt. 

1888 
Made  a  tour  of  the  Southern  States. 

1889 

Appointed  United  States  minister  resi 
dent  and  consul-general  to  the  Eepublic 
of  Hayti  and  charge  d'affaires  to  Santo 
Domingo. 

1890 

September  22.  Addressed  abolition  re 
union  at  Boston. 

1891 
Eesigned  the  office  of  minister  to  Hayti. 


CHKOM)LOGY  xix 

1893 

Acted  as  commissioner  for  Hayti  at 
World's  Columbian  Exposition. 

1895 

February  20.  Frederick  Douglass  died  at 
his  home  on  Anacostia  Heights,  near 
Washington,  District  of  Columbia. 


FREDERICK   DOUGLASS 


FREDERICK   DOUGLASS. 

I. 

IF  it  be  no  small  task  for  a  man  of  the 
most  favored  antecedents  and  the  most 
fortunate  surroundings  to  rise  above 
mediocrity  in  a  great  nation,  it  is  surely 
a  more  remarkable  achievement  for  a 
man  of  the  very  humblest  origin  possible 
to  humanity  in  any  country  in  any  age 
of  the  "world,  in  the  face  of  obstacles 
seemingly  insurmountable,  to  win  high 
honors  and  rewards,  to  retain  for  more 
than  a  generation  the  respect  of  good 
men  in  many  lands,  and  to  be  deemed 
worthy  of  enrolment  among  his  coun 
try's  great  men.  Such  a  man  was  Fred 
erick  Douglass,  and  the  example  of  one 
who  thus  rose  to  eminence  by  sheer  force 
of  character  and  talents  that  neither 
slavery  nor  caste  proscription  could 
crush  must  ever  remain  as  a  shining 
illustration  of  the  essential  superiority 
of  manhood  to  environment.  Circum- 


2         FEEDEEICK   DOUGLASS 

stances  made  Frederick  Douglass  a  slave, 
but  they  could  not  prevent  him  from  be 
coming  a  freeman  and  a  leader  among 
mankind. 

The  early  life  of  Douglass,  as  detailed 
by  himself  from  the  platform  in  vigor 
ous  and  eloquent  speech,  and  as  recorded 
in  the  three  volumes  written  by  himself 
at  different  periods  of  his  career,  is  per 
haps  the  completest  indictment  of  the 
slave  system  ever  presented  at  the  bar 
of  public  opinion.  Fanny  Kemble's 
Journal  of  a  Residence  on  a  Georgian 
Plantation,  kept  by  her  in  the  very  year 
of  Douglass's  escape  from  bondage,  but 
not  published  until  1863,  too  late  to  con 
tribute  anything  to  the  downfall  of  slav 
ery,  is  a  singularly  clear  revelation  of 
plantation  life  from  the  standpoint  of  an 
outsider  entirely  unbiassed  by  American 
prejudice.  Frederick  Douglass's  Narra 
tive  is  the  same  story  told  from  the  in 
side.  They  coincide  in  the  main  facts ; 
and  in  the  matter  of  detail,  like  the  two 


FREDERICK  DOUGLASS         3 

slightly  differing  views  of  a  stereoscopic 
picture,  they  bring  out  into  bold  relief 
the  real  character  of  the  peculiar  insti 
tution.  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  lent  to  the 
structure  of  fact  the  decorations  of 
humor,  a  dramatic  plot,  and  characters 
to  whose  fate  the  touch  of  creative 
genius  gave  a  living  interest.  But,  after 
all,  it  was  not  Uncle  Tom,  nor  Topsy, 
nor  Miss  Ophelia,  nor  Eliza,  nor  little 
Eva  that  made  the  book  the  power  it 
proved  to  stir  the  hearts  of  men,  but  the 
great  underlying  tragedy  then  already 
rapidly  approaching  a  bloody  climax. 

Frederick  Douglass  was  born  in  Feb 
ruary,  1817, — as  nearly  as  the  date  could 
be  determined  in  after  years,  when  it 
became  a  matter  of  public  interest. — at 
Tuckahoe,  near  Easton,  Talbot  County, 
on  the  eastern  shore  of  Maryland,  a  bar 
ren  and  poverty-stricken  district,  which 
possesses  in  the  birth  of  Douglass  its  sole 
title  to  distinction.  His  mother  was  a 
negro  slave,  tall,  erect,  and  well-propor- 


4  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
tioned,  of  a  deep  black  and  glossy 
complexion,  with  regular  features,  and 
manners  of  a  natural  dignity  and  sedate 
ness.  Though  a  field  hand  and  com 
pelled  to  toil  many  hours  a  day,  she  had 
in  some  mysterious  way  learned  to  read, 
being  the  only  person  of  color  in  Tucks  - 
hoe,  slave  or  free,  who  possessed  that  ac 
complishment.  His  father  was  a  white 
man.  It  was  in  the  nature  of  things 
that  in  after  years  attempts  should  be 
made  to  analyze  the  sources  of  Douglass' s 
talent,  and  that  the  question  should  b< 
raised  whether  he  owed  it  to  the  black 
or  the  white  half  of  his  mixed  ancestry. 
But  Douglass  himself,  who  knew  his  own 
mother  and  grandmother,  ascribed  such 
powers  as  he  possessed  to  the  negro  half 
of  his  blood ;  and,  as  to  it  certainly  he 
owed  the  experience  which  gave  his 
anti-slavery  work  its  peculiar  distinction 
and  value,  he  doubtless  believed  it  only 
fair  that  the  credit  for  what  he  accom 
plished  should  go  to  those  who  needed  it 


FEEDEEIGK  DOUGLASS  5 
most  and  could  justly  be  proud  of  it. 
He  never  knew  with  certainty  who  his 
white  father  was,  for  the  exigencies  of 
slavery  separated  the  boy  from  his  mother 
before  the  subject  of  his  paternity  be 
came  of  interest  to  him;  and  in  after 
years  his  white  father  never  claimed  the 
honor,  which  might  have  given  him  a 
place  in  history. 

Douglass's  earliest  recollections  cen 
tred  around  the  cabin  of  his  grand 
mother,  Betsey  Bailey,  who  seems  to 
have  been  something  of  a  privileged 
character  on  the  plantation,  being  per 
mitted  to  live  with  her  husband,  Isaac, 
in  a  cabin  of  their  own,  charged  with 
only  the  relatively  light  duty  of  looking 
after  a  number  of  young  children,  mostly 
the  offspring  of  her  own  five  daughters, 
and  providing  for  her  own  support. 

It  is  impossible  in  a  work  of  the  scope 
of  this  to  go  into  very  elaborate  detail 
with  reference  to  this  period  of  Doug 
lass's  life,  however  interesting  it  might 


6  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
be.  The  real  importance  of  his  life  to 
us  of  another  generation  lies  in  what  he 
accomplished  toward  the  world's  prog 
ress,  which  he  only  began  to  influence 
several  years  after  his  escape  from  slav 
ery.  Enough  ought  to  be  stated,  how 
ever,  to  trace  his  development  from 
slave  to  freeman,  and  his  preparation 
for  the  platform  where  he  secured  his 
hearing  and  earned  his  fame. 

Douglass  was  born  the  slave  of  one 
Captain  Aaron  Anthony,  a  man  of  some 
consequence  in  eastern  Maryland,  the 
manager  or  chief  clerk  of  one  Colonel 
Lloyd,  the  head  for  that  generation  of 
an  old,  exceedingly  wealthy,  and  highly 
honored  family  in  Maryland,  the  pos 
sessor  of  a  stately  mansion  and  one  of 
the  largest  and  most  fertile  plantations 
in  the  State.  Captain  Anthony,  though 
only  the  satellite  of  this  great  man,  him 
self  owned  several  farms  and  a  number 
of  slaves.  At  the  age  of  seven  Douglass 
was  taken  from  the  cabin  of  his  grand- 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  7 
mother  at  Tuckahoe  to  his  master's  resi 
dence  on  Colonel  Lloyd's  plantation. 

Up  to  this  time  he  had  never,  to  his 
recollection,  seen  his  mother.  All  his 
impressions  of  her  were  derived  from  a 
few  brief  visits  made  to  him  at  Colonel 
Lloyd's  plantation,  most  of  them  at 
night.  These  fleeting  visits  of  the 
mother  were  important  events  in  the 
life  of  the  child,  now  no  longer  under 
the  care  of  his  grandmother,  but  turned 
over  to  the  tender  mercies  of  his  mas 
ter's  cook,  with  whom  he  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  a  favorite.  His  mother 
died  when  he  was  eight  or  nine  years 
old.  Her  son  did  not  see  her  during 
her  illness,  nor  learn  of  it  until  after  her 
death.  It  was  always  a  matter  of  grief 
to  him  that  he  did  not  know  her  better, 
and  that  he  could  not  was  one  of  the 
sins  of  slavery  that  he  never  forgave. 

On  Colonel  Lloyd's  plantation  Doug 
lass  spent  four  years  of  the  slave  life  of 
which  his  graphic  description  on  the 


8  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS 
platform  stirred  humane  hearts  to  right 
eous  judgment  of  an  unrighteous  institu 
tion.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  this  lad, 
with  keen  eyes  and  susceptible  feelings, 
was  an  eye-witness  of  all  the  evils  to 
which  slavery  gave  birth.  Its  extremes 
of  luxury  and  misery  could  be  found 
within  the  limits  of  one  estate.  He  saw 
the  field  hand  driven  forth  at  dawn  to 
labor  until  dark.  He  beheld  every  nat 
ural  affection  crushed  when  inconsistent 
with  slavery,  or  warped  and  distorted 
to  fit  the  necessities  and  promote  the  in 
terests  of  the  institution.  He  heard  the 
unmerited  strokes  of  the  lash  on  the 
backs  of  others,  and  felt  them  on  his 
own.  In  the  wild  songs  of  the  slaves  he 
read,  beneath  their  senseless  jargon  or 
their  fulsome  praise  of  "old  master,7' 
the  often  unconscious  note  of  grief  and 
despair.  He  perceived,  too,  the  debas 
ing  effects  of  slavery  upon  master  and 
slave  alike,  crushing  all  semblance  of 
manhood  in  the  one,  and  in  the  other 


FEEDEEICK   DOUGLASS         9 

substituting  passion  for  judgment,  ca 
price  for  justice,  and  indolence  and 
effeminacy  for  the  more  virile  virtues 
of  freemen.  Doubtless  the  gentle  hand 
of  time  will  some  time  spread  the  veil  of 
silence  over  this  painful  past ;  but,  while 
we  are  still  gathering  its  evil  aftermath, 
it  is  well  enough  that  we  do  not  forget 
the  origin  of  so  many  of  our  civic  prob 
lems. 

When  Douglass  was  ten  years  old,  he 
was  sent  from  the  Lloyd  plantation  to 
Baltimore,  to  live  with  one  Hugh  Auld, 
a  relative  of  his  master.  Here  he  en 
joyed  the  high  privilege,  for  a  slave,  of 
living  in  the  house  with  his  master's 
family.  In  the  capacity  of  house  boy 
it  was  his  duty  to  run  errands  and  take 
care  of  a  little  white  boy,  Tommy  Auld, 
the  son  of  his  mistress  for  the  time  being, 
Mrs.  Sophia  Auld.  Mrs.  Auld  was  of 
a  religious  turn  of  mind ;  and,  from 
hearing  her  reading  the  Bible  aloud  fre 
quently,  curiosity  prompted  the  boy  to 


10  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
ask  her  to  teach  him  to  read.  She  com 
plied,  and  found  him  an  apt  pupil,  until 
her  husband  learned  of  her  unlawful  and 
dangerous  conduct,  and  put  an  end  to 
the  instruction.  But  the  evil  was  al 
ready  done,  and  the  seed  thus  sown 
brought  forth  fruit  in  the  after  career 
of  the  orator  and  leader  of  men.  The 
mere  fact  that  his  master  wished  to  pre 
vent  his  learning  made  him  all  the  more 
eager  to  acquire  knowledge.  In  after 
years,  even  when  most  bitter  in  his  de 
nunciation  of  the  palpable  evils  of  slav 
ery,  Douglass  always  acknowledged  the 
debt  he  owed  to  this  good  lady  who  in 
nocently  broke  the  laws  and  at  the  same 
time  broke  the  chains  that  held  a  mind 
in  bondage. 

Douglass  lived  in  the  family  of  Hugh 
Auld  at  Baltimore  for  seven  years. 
During  this  time  the  achievement  that 
had  the  greatest  influence  upon  his  fut 
ure  was  his  learning  to  read  and  write. 
His  mistress  had  given  him  a  start.  His 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  11 
own  efforts  gained  the  rest.  He  carried 
in  his  pocket  a  blue-backed  Webster's 
Spelling  Book,  and,  as  occasion  offered, 
induced  his  young  white  playmates,  by 
the  bribes  of  childhood,  to  give  him  les 
sons  in  spelling.  When  he  was  about 
thirteen,  he  began  to  feel  deeply  the 
moral  yoke  of  slavery  and  to  seek  for 
knowledge  of  the  means  to  escape  it. 
One  book  seems  to  have  had  a  marked 
influence  upon  his  life  at  this  epoch. 
He  obtained,  somehow,  a  copy  of  The  Co 
lumbian  Orator ',  containing  some  of  the 
choicest  masterpieces  of  English  oratory, 
in  which  he  saw  liberty  praised  and  op 
pression  condemned ;  and  the  glowing 
periods  of  Pitt  and  Fox  and  Sheridan 
and  our  own  Patrick  Henry  stirred 
to  life  in  the  heart  of  this  slave  boy 
the  genius  for  oratory  which  did  not 
burst  forth  until  years  afterward.  The 
worldly  wisdom  of  denying  to  slaves  the 
key  to  knowledge  is  apparent  when  it  is 
said  that  Douglass  first  learned  from  a 


12  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
newspaper  that  there  were  such  people  as 
abolitionists,  who  were  opposed  to  human 
bondage  and  sought  to  make  all  men  free. 
At  about  this  same  period  Douglass's 
mind  fell  under  religious  influences.  He 
was  converted,  professed  faith  in  Jesus 
Christ,  and  began  to  read  the  Bible. 
He  had  dreamed  of  liberty  before :  he 
now  prayed  for  it,  and  trusted  in  God. 
But,  with  the  shrewd  common  sense  which 
marked  his  whole  life  and  saved  it  from 
shipwreck  in  more  than  one  instance,  he 
never  forgot  that  God  helps  them  that 
help  themselves,  and  so  never  missed  an 
opportunity  to  acquire  the  knowledge 
that  would  prepare  him  for  freedom 
and  give  him  the  means  of  escape  from 
slavery. 

Douglass  had  learned  to  read,  partly 
from  childish  curiosity  and  the  desire 
to  be  able  to  do  what  others  around  him 
did ;  but  it  was  with  a  definite  end  in 
view  that  he  learned  to  write.  By  the 
slave  code  it  was  unlawful  for  a  slave  to 


FREDEBICK  DOUGLASS  13 
go  beyond  the  limits  of  his  own  neigh 
borhood  without  the  written  permission 
of  his  master.  Douglass's  desire  to  write 
grew  mainly  out  of  the  fact  that  in 
order  to  escape  from  bondage,  which  he 
had  early  determined  to  do,  he  would 
probably  need  such  a  "pass,"  as  this 
written  permission  was  termed,  and 
could  write  it  himself  if  he  but  knew 
how.  His  master  for  the  time  being 
kept  a  ship-yard,  and  in  this  and  neigh 
boring  establishments  of  the  same  kind 
the  boy  spent  much  of  his  time.  He 
noticed  that  the  carpenters,  after  dress 
ing  pieces  of  timber,  marked  them  with 
certain  letters  to  indicate  their  positions 
in  the  vessel.  By  asking  questions  of 
the  workmen  he  learned  the  names  of 
these  letters  and  their  significance.  He 
got  up  writing  matches  with  sticks  upon 
the  ground  with  the  little  white  boys, 
copied  the  italics  in  his  spelling-book, 
and  in  the  secrecy  of  the  attic  filled  up 
all  the  blank  spaces  of  his  young  mas- 


14  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
ter's  old  copy-books.  In  time  lie  learned 
to  write,  and  thus  again  demonstrated 
the  power  of  the  mind  to  overleap  the 
bounds  that  men  set  for  it  and  work  out 
the  destiny  to  which  God  designs  it. 


II. 

IT  was  the  curious  fate  of  Douglass  to 
pass  through  almost  every  phase  of 
slavery,  as  though  to  prepare  him  the 
more  thoroughly  for  his  future  career. 
Shortly  after  he  went  to  Baltimore,  his 
master,  Captain  Anthony,  died  intestate, 
and  his  property  was  divided  between 
his  two  children.  Douglass,  with  the 
other  slaves,  was  part  of  the  personal 
estate,  and  was  sent  for  to  be  appraised 
and  disposed  of  in  the  division.  He  fell 
to  the  share  of  Mrs.  Lucretia  Auld,  his 
master's  daughter,  who  sent  him  back  to 
Baltimore,  where,  after  a  month's  ab 
sence,  he  resumed  his  life  in  the  house 
hold  of  Mrs.  Hugh  Auld,  the  sister-in- 
law  of  his  legal  mistress.  Owing  to  a 
family  misunderstanding,  he  was  taken, 
in  March,  1833,  from  Baltimore  back  to 
St.  Michael's. 

His  mistress,  Lucretia  Auld,  had  died 
in  the  mean  time  j  and  the  new  house- 


16  FBEDEBICK  DOUGLASS 
hold  in  which  he  found  himself,  with 
Thomas  Auld  and  his  second  wife,  Eow- 
ena,  at  its  head,  was  distinctly  less 
favorable  to  the  slave  boy's  comfort 
than  the  home  where  he  had  lived  in 
Baltimore.  Here  he  saw  hardships  of 
the  life  in  bondage  that  had  been  less 
apparent  in  a  large  city.  It  is  to  be 
feared  that  Douglass  was  not  the  ideal 
slave,  governed  by  the  meek  and  lowly 
spirit  of  Uncle  Tom.  He  seems,  by  his 
own  showing,  to  have  manifested  but 
little  appreciation  of  the  wise  oversight, 
the  thoughtful  care,  and  the  freedom 
from  responsibility  with  which  slavery 
claimed  to  hedge  round  its  victims,  and 
he  was  inclined  to  spurn  the  rod  rather 
than  to  kiss  it.  A  tendency  to  insubor 
dination,  due  partly  to  the  freer  life  he 
had  led  in  Baltimore,  got  him  into  dis 
favor  with  a  master  easily  displeased  ; 
and,  not  proving  sufficiently  amenable 
to  the  discipline  of  the  home  plantation, 
he  was  sent  to  a  certain  celebrated  negro- 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  17 
breaker  by  the  name  of  Edward  Covey, 
one  of  the  poorer  whites  who,  as  over 
seers  and  slave- catchers,  and  in  similar 
unsavory  capacities,  earned  a  living  as 
parasites  on  the  system  of  slavery. 
Douglass  spent  a  year  under  Covey's 
ministrations,  and  his  life  there  may  be 
summed  up  in  his  own  words  :  "I  had 
neither  sufficient  time  in  which  to  eat 
or  to  sleep,  except  on  Sundays.  The 
overwork  and  the  brutal  chastisements 
of  which  I  was  the  victim,  combined 
with  that  ever-gnawing  and  soul- de 
stroying  thought,  'I  am  a  slave, —  a 
slave  for  life,7  rendered  me  a  living 
embodiment  of  mental  and  physical 
wretchedness." 

But  even  all  this  did  not  entirely  crush 
the  indomitable  spirit  of  a  man  destined 
to  achieve  his  own  freedom,  and  there 
after  to  help  win  freedom  for  a  race.  In 
August,  1834,  after  a  particularly  atro 
cious  beating,  which  left  him  wounded 
and  weak  from  loss  of  blood,  Douglass 


18  FKEDEKICK  DOUGLASS 
escaped  the  vigilance  of  the  slave-breaker 
and  made  his  way  back  to  his  own  mas 
ter  to  seek  protection.  The  master,  who 
would  have  lost  his  slave's  wages  for  a 
year  if  he  had  broken  the  contract  with 
Covey  before  the  year's  end,  sent  Doug 
lass  back  to  his  taskmaster.  Anticipat 
ing  the  most  direful  consequences,  Doug 
lass  made  the  desperate  resolution  to 
resist  any  further  punishment  at  Covey's 
hands.  After  a  fight  of  two  hours 
Covey  gave  up  his  attempt  to  whip 
Frederick,  and  thenceforth  laid  hands 
on  him  no  more.  That  Covey  did  not 
invoke  the  law,  which  made  death  the 
punishment  of  the  slave  who  resisted 
his  master,  was  probably  due  to  shame 
at  having  been  worsted  by  a  negro  boy, 
or  to  the  prudent  consideration  that 
there  was  no  profit  to  be  derived  from  a 
dead  negro.  Strength  of  character,  re- 
enforced  by  strength  of  muscle,  thus  won 
a  victory  over  brute  force  that  secured 
for  Douglass  comparative  immunity  from 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  19 
abuse  during  the  remaining  months  of 
his  year's  service  with  Covey. 

The  next  year,  1835,  Douglass  was 
hired  out  to  a  Mr.  William  Freeland, 
who  lived  near  St.  Michael's,  a  gentle 
man  who  did  not  forget  justice  or  hu 
manity,  so  far  as  they  were  consistent 
with  slavery,  even  in  dealing  with  bond 
servants.  Here  Douglass  led  a  compara 
tively  comfortable  life.  He  had  enough 
to  eat,  was  not  overworked,  and  found 
the  time  to  conduct  a  surreptitious  Sun 
day-school,  where  he  tried  to  help  others 
by  teaching  his  fellow-slaves  to  read  the 
Bible. 


III. 

THE  manner  of  Douglass's  escape  from 
Maryland  was  never  publicly  disclosed 
by  him  until  the  war  had  made  slavery 
a  memory  and  the  slave- catcher  a  thing 
of  the  past.  It  was  the  theory  of  the 
anti-slavery  workers  of  the  time  that 
the  publication  of  the  details  of  es 
capes  or  rescues  from  bondage  seldom 
reached  the  ears  of  those  who  might 
have  learned  thereby  to  do  likewise,  but 
merely  furnished  the  master  class  with 
information  that  would  render  other  es 
capes  more  difficult  and  bring  suspicion 
or  punishment  upon  those  who  had  as 
sisted  fugitives.  That  this  was  no  idle 
fear  there  is  abundant  testimony  in  the 
annals  of  the  period.  But  in  later  years, 
when  there  was  no  longer  any  danger  of 
unpleasant  consequences,  and  when  it 
had  become  an  honor  rather  than  a  dis 
grace  to  have  assisted  a  distressed  runa 
way,  Douglass  published  in  detail  the 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  21 
story  of  his  flight.  It  would  not  com 
pare  in  dramatic  interest  with  many 
other  celebrated  escapes  from  slavery  or 
imprisonment.  He  simply  masqueraded 
as  a  sailor,  borrowed  a  sailor's  " pro 
tection,'7  or  certificate  that  he  belonged 
to  the  navy,  took  the  train  in  Baltimore 
in  the  evening,  and  rode  in  the  negro 
car  until  he  reached  New  York  City. 
There  were  many  anxious  moments  dur 
ing  this  journey.  The  " protection"  he 
carried  described  a  man  somewhat  dif 
ferent  from  him,  but  the  conductor  did 
not  examine  it  carefully.  Fear  clutched 
at  the  fugitive's  heart  whenever  he 
neared  a  State  border  line.  He  saw 
several  persons  whom  he  knew ;  but,  if 
they  recognized  him  or  suspected  his 
purpose,  they  made  no  sign.  A  little 
boldness,  a  little  address,  and  a  great 
deal  of  good  luck  carried  him  safely  to 
his  journey's  end. 

Douglass  arrived    in    New   York  on 
September  4,  1838,  having  attained  only 


22  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS 
a  few  months  before  what  would  have 
been  in  a  freeman  his  legal  major 
ity.  But,  though  landed  in  a  free  State, 
he  was  by  uo  means  a  free  man.  He 
was  still  a  piece  of  property,  and  could 
be  reclaimed  by  the  law?s  aid  if  his 
whereabouts  were  discovered.  While 
local  sentiment  at  the  Xorth  afforded  a 
measure  of  protection  to  fugitives,  and 
few  were  ever  returned  to  bondage  com 
pared  with  the  number  that  escaped, 
yet  the  fear  of  recapture  was  ever  with 
them,  darkening  their  lives  and  imped 
ing  their  pursuit  of  happiness. 

P>ut  oven  the  partial  freedom  Doug 
lass  had  achieved  gave  birth  to  a  thou 
sand  delightful  sensations.  In  his  auto 
biography  he  describes  this  dawn  of 
liberty  thus :  — 

"A  new  world  had  opened  up  to  me. 
I  lived  more  in  one  day  than  in  a  year 
of  my  slave  life.  I  felt  as  one  might 
feel  upon  escape  from  a  den  of  hungry 
lions.  My  chains  were  broken,  and  the 
victory  brought  me  unspeakable  joy.' 


FKEDERICK  DOUGLASS  23 
But  one  cannot  live  long  on  joy  ;  and, 
while  his  chains  were  broken,  he  was 
not  beyond  the  echo  of  their  clanking. 
He  met  on  the  streets,  within  a  few 
hours  after  his  arrival  in  New  York,  a 
man  of  his  own  color,  who  informed 
him  that  Xew  York  was  full  of  South 
erners  at  that  season  of  the  year,  and 
that  slave-hunters  and  spies  were  numer 
ous,  that  old  residents  of  the  city  were 
not  safe,  and  that  any  recent  fugitive 
was  in  imminent  danger.  After  this 
cheerful  communication  Douglass's  in 
formant  left  him,  evidently  fearing  that 
Douglass  himself  might  be  a  slave-hunt- 
iBg  spy-  There  were  negroes  base 
enough  to  play  this  role.  In  a  sailor 
whom  he  encountered  he  found  a  friend. 
This  Good  Samaritan  took  him  home 
for  the  night,  and  accompanied  him  next 
day  to  a  Mr.  David  Buggies,  a  colored 
man,  the  secretary  of  the  New  York 
Vigilance  Committee  and  an  active  anti- 
slavery  worker.  Mr.  Euggles  kept  him 


24       FEEDEEICK   DOUGLASS 

concealed  for  several  days,  during  which 
time  the  woman  Douglass  loved,  a  free 
woman,  came  on  from  Baltimore ;  and 
they  were  married.  He  had  no  money 
in  his  pocket,  and  nothing  to  depend 
upon  but  his  hands,  which  doubtless 
seemed  to  him  quite  a  valuable  posses 
sion,  as  he  knew  they  had  brought  in  an 
income  of  several  hundred  dollars  a  year 
to  their  former  owner. 

Douglass's  new  friends  advised  him  to 
go  to  New  Bedford,  Massachusetts,  where 
whaling  fleets  were  fitted  out,  and  where 
he  might  hope  to  find  work  at  his  trade 
of  ship-calker.  It  was  believed,  too,  that 
he  would  be  safer  there,  as  the  anti- 
slavery  sentiment  was  considered  too 
strong  to  permit  of  a  fugitive  slave's 
being  returned  to  the  South. 

When  Douglass,  accompanied  by  his 
wife,  arrived  in  New  Bedford,  a  Mr. 
Nathan  Johnson,  a  colored  man  to  whom 
he  had  been  recommended,  received  him 
kindly,  gave  him  shelter  and  sympathy, 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  25 
and  lent  him  a  small  sum  of  money  to 
redeem  his  meagre  baggage,  which  had 
been  held  by  the  stage- driver  as  security 
for  an  unpaid  balance  of  the  fare  to  New 
Bedford.  In  his  autobiography  Doug 
lass  commends  Mr.  Johnson  for  his 
"  noble-hearted  hospitality  and  manly 
character. ' J 

In  New  York  Douglass  had  changed 
his  name  in  order  the  better  to  hide  his 
identity  from  any  possible  pursuer. 
Douglass's  name  was  another  tie  that 
bound  him  to  his  race.  He  has  been 
called  " Douglass"  by  the  writer  be 
cause  that  was  the  name  he  took  for 
himself,  as  he  did  his  education  and  his 
freedom  5  and  as  tc Douglass7'  he  made 
himself  famous.  As  a  slave,  he  was 
legally  entitled  to  but  one  name, — Fred 
erick.  From  his  grandfather,  Isaac 
Bailey,  a  freeman,  he  had  derived  the 
surname  Bailey.  His  mother,  with  un 
conscious  sarcasm,  had  called  the  little 
slave  boy  Frederick  Augustus  Washing- 


26  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
ton  Bailey.  The  bearer  of  this  imposing 
string  of  appellations  had,  with  a  finer 
sense  of  fitness,  cut  it  down  to  Frederick 
Bailey.  In  New  York  he  had  called 
himself  Frederick  Johnson  ;  but,  finding 
when  he  reached  New  Bedford  that  a 
considerable  portion  of  the  colored  pop 
ulation  of  the  city  already  rejoiced  in 
this  familiar  designation,  he  fell  in  with 
the  suggestion  of  his  host,  who  had  been 
reading  Scott's  Lady  of  the  Lake,  and 
traced  an  analogy  between  the  runaway 
slave  and  the  fugitive  chieftain,  that  the 
new  freeman  should  call  himself  Doug 
lass,  after  the  noble  Scot  of  that  name. 
The  choice  proved  not  inappropriate, 
for  this  modern  Douglass  fought  as 
valiantly  in  his  own  cause  and  with  his 
own  weapons  as  ever  any  Douglas 
fought  with  flashing  steel  in  border 
foray. 

Here,  then,  in  a  New  England  town, 
Douglass  began  the  life  of  a  freeman, 
from  which,  relieved  now  of  the  incubus 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  27 
of  slavery,  lie  soon  emerged  into  the 
career  for  which,  in  the  providence  of 
God,  he  seemed  by  his  multiform  expe 
rience  to  have  been  especially  fitted. 
He  did  not  find  himself,  even  in  Massa 
chusetts,  quite  beyond  the  influence  of 
slavery.  While  before  the  law  of  the 
State  he  was  the  equal  of  any  other  man, 
caste  prejudice  prevented  him  from  find 
ing  work  at  his  trade  of  calker  ;  and  he 
therefore  sought  employment  as  a  la 
borer.  This  he  found  easily,  and  for 
three  years  worked  at  whatever  his 
hands  found  to  do.  The  hardest  toil 
was  easy  to  him,  the  heaviest  burdens 
were  light ;  for  the  money  that  he 
earned  went  into  his  own  pocket.  If  it 
did  not  remain  there  long,  he  at  least 
had  the  satisfaction  of  spending  it  and  of 
enjoying  what  it  purchased. 

During  these  three  years  he  was  learn 
ing  the  lesson  of  liberty  and  uncon 
sciously  continuing  his  training  for  the 
work  of  an  anti-slavery  agitator.  He 


28  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
became  a  subscriber  to  the  Liberator, 
each  number  of  which  he  devoured  with 
eagerness.  He  heard  William  Lloyd 
Garrison  lecture,  and  became  one  of  his 
most  devoted  disciples.  He  attended 
every  anti-slavery  meeting  in  New  Bed 
ford,  and  now  and  then  spoke  on  the 
subject  of  slavery  in  humble  gatherings 
of  his  own  people. 


IV. 

IN  1841  Douglass  entered  upon  that 
epoch  of  his  life  which  brought  the 
hitherto  obscure  refugee  prominently  be 
fore  the  public,  and  in  which  his  services 
as  anti-slavery  orator  and  reformer  con 
stitute  his  chief  claim  to  enduring  recol 
lection.  Millions  of  negroes  whose  lives 
had  been  far  less  bright  than  Douglass's 
had  lived  and  died  in  slavery.  Thou 
sands  of  fugitives  under  assumed  names 
were  winning  a  precarious  livelihood  in 
the  free  States  and  trembling  in  con 
stant  fear  of  the  slave- catcher.  Some 
of  these  were  doing  noble  work  in  assist 
ing  others  to  escape  from  bondage.  Mr. 
Siebert,  in  his  Underground  Eailroad, 
mentions  one  fugitive  slave,  John  Mason 
by  name,  who  assisted  thirteen  hundred 
others  to  escape  from  Kentucky.  An 
other  picturesque  fugitive  was  Harriet 
Tubman,  who  devoted  her  life  to  this 
work  with  a  courage,  skill,  and  success 


30       FEEDEEICK   DOUGLASS 

that  won  her  a  wide  reputation  among 
the  friends  of  freedom.  A  number  of 
free  colored  men  in  the  North,  a  few  of 
them  wealthy  and  cultivated,  lent  their 
time  and  their  means  to  this  cause.  But 
it  was  reserved  for  Douglass,  by  virtue 
of  his  marvellous  gift  of  oratory,  to  be 
come  pre-eminently  the  personal  repre 
sentative  of  his  people  for  a  generation. 
In  1841  the  Massachusetts  Anti-slav 
ery  Society,  which  had  been  for  some 
little  time  weakened  by  faction,  ar 
ranged  its  differences,  and  entered  upon 
a  campaign  of  unusual  activity,  which 
found  expression  in  numerous  meetings 
throughout  the  free  States,  mainly  in 
New  England.  On  August  15  of  that 
year  a  meeting  was  held  at  Nantucket, 
Massachusetts.  The  meeting  was  con 
ducted  by  John  A.  Collins,  at  that  time 
general  agent  of  the  society,  and  was  ad 
dressed  by  William  Lloyd  Garrison  and 
other  leading  abolitionists.  Douglass  had 
taken  a  holiday  and  come  from  New  Bed- 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS       31 

ford  to  attend  this  convention,  without 
the  remotest  thought  of  taking  part  ex 
cept  as  a  spectator.  The  proceedings 
were  interesting,  and  aroused  the  audi 
ence  to  a  high  state  of  feeling.  There 
was  present  in  the  meeting  a  certain 
abolitionist,  by  name  William  C.  Coffin, 
who  had  heard  Douglass  speak  in  the 
little  negro  Sunday-school  at  New  Bed 
ford,  and  who  knew  of  his  recent  escape 
from  slavery.  To  him  came  the  happy 
inspiration  to  ask  Douglass  to  speak  a 
few  words  to  the  convention  by  way  of 
personal  testimony.  Collins  introduced 
the  speaker  as  "a  graduate  from  slav 
ery,  with  his  diploma  written  upon  his 
back." 

Douglass  himself  speaks  very  modestly 
about  this,  his  first  public  appearance. 
He  seems,  from  his  own  account,  to  have 
suffered  somewhat  from  stage  fright, 
which  was  apparently  his  chief  memory 
concerning  it.  The  impressions  of  others, 
however,  allowing  a  little  for  the  enthu- 


32  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
siasm  of  the  moment,  are  a  safer  guide 
as  to  the  effect  of  Douglass's  first  speech. 
Parker  Pillsbury  reported  that,  f l  though 
it  was  late  in  the  evening  when  the  young 
man  closed  his  remarks,  none  seemed  to 
know  or  care  for  the  hour.  .  .  .  The 
crowded  congregation  had  been  wrought 
up  almost  to  enchantment  during  the 
whole  long  evening,  particularly  by 
some  of  the  utterances  of  the  last  speaker 
[Douglass],  as  he  turned  over  the  ter 
rible  apocalypse  of  his  experience  in 
slavery.'7  Mr.  Garrison  bore  testimony 
to  l '  the  extraordinary  emotion  it  exerted 
on  his  own  mind  and  to  the  powerful 
impression  it  exerted  upon  a  crowded 
auditory. "  " Patrick  Henry,"  he  de 
clared,  "had  never  made  a  more  elo 
quent  speech  than  the  one  they  had  just 
listened  to  from  the  lips  of  the  hunted 
fugitive."  Upon  Douglass  and  his 
speech  as  a  text  Mr.  Garrison  delivered 
one  of  the  sublimest  and  most  masterly 
efforts  of  his  life ;  and  then  and  there 


FBEDEKICK  DOUGLASS       33 

began  the  friendship  between  the  fugitive 
slave  and  the  great  agitator  which 
opened  the  door  for  Douglass  to  a  life 
of  noble  usefulness,  and  secured  to  the 
anti-slavery  cause  one  of  its  most  brill 
iant  and  effective  orators. 

At  Garrison's  instance  Collins  offered 
Douglass  employment  as  lecturer  for  the 
Anti- slavery  Society,    though  the  idea 
i  of  thus  engaging  him  doubtless  occurred 
to  more  than  one  of  the  abolition  leaders 
who  heard  his  Nantucket  speech.     Doug 
lass  was  distrustful  of  his  own  powers. 
Only  three  years   out   of  slavery,  with 
little  learning  and  no  experience  as  a 
public  speaker,  painfully  aware  of  the 
i  prejudice  which  must  be  encountered  by 
men  of  his  color,  fearful  too  of  the  pub 
licity  that  might  reveal  his  whereabouts 
to  his  legal  owner,  who  might  reclaim 
|  his  property  wherever  found,  he  yielded 
j  only  reluctantly  to  Mr.  Collins' s  propo- 
j  sition,   and  agreed  at  first  upon  only  a 
|  three  months'  term  of  service. 


34       FKEDEEICK   DOUGLASS 

Most  of  the  abolitionists  were,  or  meant 
to  be,  consistent  in  their  practice  of  what 
they  preached ;  and  so,  when  Douglass 
was  enrolled  as  one  of  the  little  band  of 
apostles,  they  treated  him  literally  as  a 
man  and  a  brother.  Their  homes,  their 
hearts,  and  their  often  none  too  well- 
filled  purses  were  open  to  him.  In  this 
new  atmosphere  his  mind  expanded,  his 
spirit  took  on  high  courage,  and  he  read 
and  studied  diligently,  that  he  might 
make  himself  worthy  of  his  opportunity 
to  do  something  for  his  people. 

During  the  remainder  of  1841  Doug 
lass  travelled  and  lectured  in  Eastern 
Massachusetts  with  George  Foster,  in  the 
interest  of  the  two  leading  abolition 
journals,  the  Anti-slavery  Standard  and 
the  Liberator •,  and  also  lectured  in  Ehode 
Island  against  the  proposed  Dorr  consti 
tution,  which  sought  to  limit  the  right 
of  suffrage  to  white  male  citizens  only, 
thus  disfranchising  colored  men  who 
had  theretofore  voted.  With  Foster  and 


FREDERICK  DOUGLASS  35 
Pillsbury  and  Parker  and  Monroe  and 
Abby  Kelly  he  labored  to  defeat  the 
Dorr  constitution  and  at  the  same  time 
promote  the  abolition  gospel.  The  pro 
posed  constitution  was  defeated,  and  col 
ored  men  who  could  meet  the  Ehode 
Island  property  qualification  were  left 
in  possession  of  the  right  to  vote. 

Douglass  had  plunged  into  this  new 
work,  after  the  first  embarrassment  wore 
off,  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  youth  and 
hope.  But,  except  among  the  little  band 
of  Garrisonians  and  their  sympathizers, 
his  position  did  not  relieve  him  from  the 
disabilities  attaching  to  his  color.  The 
^feeling  toward  the  negro  in  New  Eng- 
jland  in  1841  was  but  little  different 
from  that  in  the  State  of  Georgia  to-day. 
(Men  of  color  were  regarded  and  treated 
ias  belonging  to  a  distinctly  inferior  order 
of  creation.  At  hotels  and  places  of 
public  resort  they  were  refused  enter 
tainment.  On  railroads  and  steamboats 
(they  were  herded  off  by  themselves  in 


36       FREDERICK  DOUGLASS 

mean  and  uncomfortable  cars.  If  wel 
comed  in  churches  at  all,  they  were 
carefully  restricted  to  the  negro  pew. 
As  in  the  Southern  States  to-day,  nc 
distinction  was  made  among  them  ir 
these  respects  by  virtue  of  dress  or  man 
ners  or  culture  or  means  j  but  all  were 
alike  discriminated  against  because  of 
their  dark  skins.  Some  of  Douglass'* 
abolition  friends,  among  whom  he  espe 
cially  mentions  Wendell  Phillips  and 
two  others  of  lesser  note,  won  their  waj 
to  his  heart  by  at  all  times  refusing  tc 
accept  privileges  that  were  denied  tc 
their  swarthy  companion.  Douglass  re 
sented  proscription  wherever  met  with, 
and  resisted  it  with  force  when  the  odd* 
were  not  too  overwhelming.  More  thaE 
once  he  was  beaten  and  maltreated  by 
railroad  conductors  and  brakemen.  For 
a  time  the  Eastern  Eailroad  ran  its  cars 
through  Lynn,  Massachusetts,  without 
stopping,  because  Douglass,  who  resided 
at  that  time  in  Lynn,  insisted  on  riding 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  37 
in  the  white  people's  car,  and  made 
trouble  when  interfered  with.  Often  it 
was  impossible  for  the  abolitionists  to  se 
cure  a  meeting- place  ;  and  in  several  in 
stances  Douglass  paraded  the  streets  with 
a  bell,  like  a  town  crier,  to  announce 
that  he  would  lecture  in  the  open  air. 

Some  of  Douglass's  friends,  it  must  be 
admitted,  were  at  times  rather  extreme 
in  their  language,  and  perhaps  stirred 
up  feelings  that  a  more  temperate  vocab 
ulary  would  not  have  aroused.  None 
of  them  ever  hesitated  to  call  a  spade  a 
spade,  and  some  of  them  denounced 
slavery  and  all  its  sympathizers  with 
the  vigor  and  picturesqueness  of  a  Mug- 
^gletonian  or  Fifth  Monarchy  man  of 
.Cromwell's  time  execrating  his  religious 
adversaries.  And,  while  it  was  true 
i,  enough  that  the  Church  and  the  State 
!  were,  generally  speaking,  the  obsequious 
(tools  of  slavery,  it  was  not  easy  for  an 
•abolitionist  to  say  so  in  vehement  lan 
guage  without  incurring  the  charge  of 


38  FBEDEBICK  DOUGLASS 
treason  or  blasphemy, —  an  old  trick 
of  bigotry  and  tyranny  to  curb  freedom 
of  thought  and  freedom  of  speech.  The 
little  personal  idiosyncrasies  which  some 
of  the  reformers  affected,  such  as  long 
hair  in  the  men  and  short  hair  in  the 
women, — there  is  surely  some  psycho 
logical  reason  why  reformers  run  to  sucl] 
things, —  served  as  convenient  excuses 
for  gibes  and  unseemly  interruptions  at 
their  public  meetings.  On  one  memo 
rable  occasion,  at  Syracuse,  New  York, 
in  November,  1842,  Douglass  and  his  fel 
lows  narrowly  escaped  tar  and  feathers. 
But,  although  Douglass  was  vehemently 
denunciatory  of  slavery  in  all  its  aspects, 
his  twenty  years  of  training  in  that  hard 
school  had  developed  in  him  a  vein  of 
prudence  that  saved  him  from  these 
verbal  excesses, — perhaps  there  was  also 
some  element  of  taste  involved, — and 
thus  made  his  arguments  more  effective 
than  if  he  had  alienated  his  audiences  bj 
indiscriminate  attacks  on  all  the  institu-: 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS       39 

tions  of  society.  No  one  could  justly  ac 
cuse  Frederick  Douglass  of  cowardice  or 
self-seeking ;  yet  he  was  opportunist 
enough  to  sacrifice  the  immaterial  for 
the  essential,  and  to  use  the  best  means 
at  hand  to  promote  the  ultimate  object 
sought,  although  the  means  thus  offered 
might  not  be  the  ideal  instrument.  It 
was  doubtless  this  trait  that  led  Douglass, 
after  he  separated  from  his  abolitionist 
friends,  to  modify  his  views  upon  the 
subject  of  disunion  and  the  constitu 
tionality  of  slavery,  and  to  support 
political  parties  whose  platforms  by  no 
means  expressed  the  full  measure  of  his 
convictions. 

In  1843  the  New  England  Anti-slavery 
Society  resolved,  at  its  annual  meeting 
in  the  spring,  to  stir  the  Northern  heart 
pud  rouse  the  national  conscience  by  a 
/Series  of   one    hundred  conventions  in 
i  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  New  York, 
•Dhio,      Indiana,      and      Pennsylvania, 
i  pouglass  was  assigned  as   one    of   the 


40  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
agents  for  the  conduct  of  this  under 
taking.  Among  those  associated  in  this 
work,  which  extended  over  five  months, 
were  John  A.  Collins,  the  president  of 
the  society,  who  mapped  out  the  cam 
paign  j  James  Monroe ;  George  Brad- 
burn  j  William  A.  White ;  Charles  L. 
Eemond,  a  colored  orator,  born  in  Mas 
sachusetts,  who  rendered  effective  ser 
vice  in  the  abolition  cause  ;  and  Sidney 
Howard  Gay,  at  that  time  managing 
editor  of  the  National  Anti-slavery  Stand 
ard  and  later  of  the  New  York  Tribune 
and  the  New  York  Evening  Post. 

The  campaign  upon  which  this  little 
band  of  missionaries  set  out  was  no  in 
considerable  one.  They  were  not  going 
forth  to  face  enthusiastic  crowds  of  sup 
porters,  who  would  meet  them  with  brass 
bands  and  shouts  of  welcome.  They 
were  more  likely  to  be  greeted  with 
hisses  and  cat- calls,  sticks  and  stones, 
stale  eggs  and  decayed  cabbages,  hoots 
and  yells  of  derision,  and  decorations 
of  tar  and  feathers. 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  41 
In  some  towns  of  Vermont  slanderous 
reports  were  made  in  advance  of  their 
arrival,  their  characters  were  assailed, 
and  their  aims  and  objects  misrepre 
sented.  In  Syracuse,  afterward  distin 
guished  for  its  strong  anti-slavery  senti 
ment,  the  abolitionists  were  compelled 
to  hold  their  meetings  in  the  public 
park,  from  inability  to  procure  a  house 
in  which  to  speak  ;  and  only  after  their 
convention  was  well  under  way  were 
they  offered  the  shelter  of  a  dilapidated 
and  abandoned  church.  In  Eochester 
they  met  with  a  more  hospitable  recep 
tion.  The  indifference  of  Buffalo  so  dis 
gusted  Douglass's  companions  that  they 
shook  the  dust  of  the  city  from  their 
feet,  and  left  Douglass,  who  was  accus 
tomed  to  coldness  and  therefore  un 
daunted  by  it,  to  tread  the  wine-press 
alone.  He  spoke  in  an  old  post-office 
for  nearly  a  week,  to  such  good  purpose 
that  a  church  was  thrown  open  to  him  ; 
and  on  a  certain  Sunday,  in  the  public 


42       FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
park,  lie  held  and  thrilled  by  his  elo 
quence  an   audience    of   five    thousand 
people. 

On  leaving  Buffalo,  Douglass  joined 
the  other  speakers,  and  went  with  them 
to  Clinton  County,  Ohio,  where,  under 
a  large  tent,  a  mass  meeting  was  held 
of  abolitionists  who  had  come  from 
widely  scattered  points.  During  an  ex 
cursion  made  about  this  time  to  Penn 
sylvania  to  attend  a  convention  at 
Norristown,  an  attempt  was  made  to 
lynch  him  at  Manayunk  ;  but  his  usual 
good  fortune  served  him,  and  he  lived 
to  be  threatened  by  higher  powers  than 
a  pro-slavery  mob. 

When  the  party  of  reformers  reached 
Indiana,  where  the  pro-slavery  spirit 
was  always  strong,  the  State  having  been 
settled  largely  by  Southerners,  their 
campaign  of  education  became  a  running 
fight,  in  which  Douglass,  whose  dark 
skin  attracted  most  attention,  often  got 
more  than  his  share.  His  strength  and 


FEEDEEICK   DOUGLASS       43 

address  brought  him  safely  out  of  many 
an  encounter  ;  but  in  a  struggle  with  a 
mob  at  Eichmond,  Indiana,  he  was  badly 
beaten  and  left  unconscious  on  the 
ground.  A  good  Quaker  took  him  home 
in  his  wagon,  his  wife  bound  up  Doug 
lass's  wounds  and  nursed  him  tenderly, — 
the  Quakers  were  ever  the  consistent 
friends  of  freedom, — but  for  the  lack  of 
proper  setting  he  carried  to  the  grave  a 
stiff  hand  as  the  result  of  this  affray. 
He  had  often  been  introduced  to  audi 
ences  as  "a  graduate  from  slavery  with 
his  diploma  written  upon  his  back"  : 
from  Indiana  he  received  the  distinction 
of  a  post-graduate  degree. 


Y. 

IT  can  easily  be  understood  that  such 
a  man  as  Douglass,  thrown  thus  into 
stimulating  daily  intercourse  with  some 
of  the  brightest  minds  of  his  generation, 
all  animated  by  a  high  and  noble  enthu 
siasm  for  liberty  and  humanity, —  such 
men  as  Garrison  and  Phillips  and  Gay 
and  Monroe  and  many  others, — should 
have  developed  with  remarkable  ra 
pidity  those  reserves  of  character  and 
intellect  which  slavery  had  kept  in 
repression.  And  yet,  while  aware  of  his 
wonderful  talent  for  oratory,  he  never 
for  a  moment  let  this  knowledge  turn 
his  head  or  obscure  the  consciousness 
that  he  had  brought  with  him  out  of 
slavery  some  of  the  disabilities  of  that 
status.  Naturally,  his  expanding  intel 
ligence  sought  a  wider  range  of  expres 
sion  ;  and  his  simple  narrative  of  the 
wrongs  of  slavery  gave  way  sometimes 
to  a  discussion  of  its  philosophy.  His 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  45 
abolitionist  friends  would  have  pre 
ferred  him  to  stick  a  little  more  closely 
to  the  old  line, — to  furnish  the  expe 
rience  while  they  provided  the  argu 
ment.  But  the  strong  will  that  slavery 
had  not  been  able  to  break  was  not 
always  amenable  to  politic  suggestion. 
Douglass's  style  and  vocabulary  and 
logic  improved  so  rapidly  that  people 
began  to  question  his  having  been  a 
slave.  His  appearance,  speech,  and 
manner  differed  so  little  in  material  par 
ticulars  from  those  of  his  excellent  exem 
plars  that  many  people  were  sceptical  of 
his  antecedents.  Douglass  had,  since  his 
escape  from  slavery,  carefully  kept  silent 
about  the  place  he  came  from  and  his 
master's  name  and  the  manner  of  his 
escape,  for  the  very  good  reason  that 
their  revelation  would  have  informed  his 
master  of  his  whereabouts  and  rendered 
his  freedom  precarious  j  for  the  fugitive 
slave  law  was  in  force,  and  only  here 
and  there  could  local  public  sentiment 


46       FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 

have  prevented  its  operation.  Confronted 
with  the  probability  of  losing  his  useful 
ness,  as  the  " awful  example/7  Douglass 
took  the  bold  step  of  publishing  in  the 
spring  of  1845  the  narrative  of  his  expe 
rience  as  a  slave,  giving  names  of  people 
and  places,  and  dates  as  nearly  as  he 
could  recall  them.  His  abolitionist 
friends  doubted  the  expediency  of  this 
step  ;  and  Wendell  Phillips  advised  him 
to  throw  the  manuscript  into  the  fire, 
declaring  that  the  government  of  Massa 
chusetts  had  neither  the  power  nor  the 
will  to  protect  him  from  the  conse 
quences  of  his  daring. 

The  pamphlet  was  widely  read.  It 
was  written  in  a  style  of  graphic  sim 
plicity,  and  was  such  an  expose  of  slavery 
as  exasperated  its  jealous  supporters  and 
beneficiaries.  Douglass  soon  had  excel 
lent  reasons  to  fear  that  he  would  be  re 
captured  by  force  or  guile  and  returned 
to  slavery  or  a  worse  fate.  The  pros 
pect  was  not  an  alluring  one  j  and  hence, 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  47 
to  avoid  an  involuntary  visit  to  the 
scenes  of  his  childhood,  he  sought  lib 
erty  beyond  the  sea,  where  men  of  his 
color  have  always  enjoyed  a  larger  free 
dom  than  in  their  native  land. 

In  1845  Douglass  set  sail  for  England 
on  board  the  Cambria,  of  the  Cunard 
Line,  accompanied  by  James  N.  Buffum, 
a  prominent  abolitionist  of  Lynn,  Mas 
sachusetts.  On  the  same  steamer  were 
the  Hutchinson  family,  who  lent  their 
sweet  songs  to  the  anti-slavery  crusade. 
Douglass's  color  rendered  him  ineligible 
for  cabin  passage,  and  he  was  relegated 
to  the  steerage.  Nevertheless,  he  be 
came  quite  the  lion  of  the  vessel,  made 
the  steerage  fashionable,  was  given  the 
freedom  of  the  ship,  and  invited  to  lect 
ure  on  slavery.  This  he  did  to  the 
satisfaction  of  all  the  passengers  except 
a  few  young  men  from  New  Orleans  and 
Georgia,  who,  true  to  the  instincts  of 
their  caste,  made  his  strictures  on  the 
South  a  personal  matter,  and  threatened 


48  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
to  throw  him  overboard.  Their  zeal 
was  diminished  by  an  order  of  the  cap 
tain  to  put  them  in  irons.  They  sulked 
in  their  cabins,  however,  and  rushed 
into  print  when  they  reached  Liverpool, 
thus  giving  Douglass  the  very  introduc 
tion  he  needed  to  the  British  public, 
which  was  promptly  informed,  by  him 
self  and  others,  of  the  true  facts  in  re 
gard  to  the  steamer  speech  and  the 
speaker. 


VI. 

THE  two  years  Douglass  spent  in 
Great  Britain  upon  this  visit  were  active 
and  fruitful  ones,  and  did  much  to  bring 
him  to  that  full  measure  of  development 
scarcely  possible  for  him  in  slave-ridden 
America.  For  while  the  English  gov 
ernment  had  fostered  slavery  prior  to  the 
Revolution,  and  had  only  a  few  years 
before  Douglass's  visit  abolished  it  in  its 
own  colonies,  this  wretched  system  had 
never  fastened  its  clutches  upon  the  home 
islands.  Slaves  had  been  brought  to 
England,  it  is  true,  and  carried  away ; 
but,  when  the  right  to  remove  them 
was  questioned  in  court,  Lord  Chief  Jus 
tice  Mansfield,  with  an  abundance  of 
argument  and  precedent  to  support  a 
position  similar  to  that  of  Justice  Taney 
in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  had  taken  the 
contrary  view,  and  declared  that  the  air 
of  England  was  free,  and  the  slave  who 
breathed  it  but  once  ceased  thereby  to 


50       FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
be  a  slave.     History  and  humanity  have 
delivered  their  verdict  on  these  two  de 
cisions,   and  time  is  not  likely  to  dis 
turb  it. 

A  few  days  after  landing  at  Liverpool, 
Douglass  went  to  Ireland,  where  the  agi 
tation  for  the  repeal  of  the  union  between 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland  was  in  full 
swing,  under  the  leadership  of  Daniel 
O'  Connell,  the  great  Irish  orator.  O'  Con- 
nell  had  denounced  slavery  in  words  of 
burning  eloquence.  The  Garrisonian 
abolitionists  advocated  the  separation  of 
the  free  and  slave  States  as  the  only 
means  of  securing  some  part  of  the 
United  States  to  freedom.  The  Ameri 
can  and  Irish  disunionists  were  united 
by  a  strong  bond  of  sympathy.  Douglass 
was  soon  referred  to  as  "the  black 
O' Connell,"  and  lectured  on  slavery  and 
on  temperance  to  large  and  enthusiastic 
audiences.  He  was  introduced  to  O'  Con 
nell,  and  exchanged  compliments  with 
him.  A  public  breakfast  was  given  him 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  51 
at  Cork,  and  a  soiree  by  Father  Mathew, 
the  eminent  leader  of  the  great  temper 
ance  crusade  which  at  that  time  shared 
with  the  repeal  agitation  the  public  in 
terest  of  Ireland.  A  reception  to  Doug 
lass  and  his  friend  Buffuni  was  held  in 
St.  Patrick's  Temperance  Hall,  where 
they  were  greeted  with  a  special  song  of 
welcome,  written  for  the  occasion.  On 
January  6,  1846,  a  public  breakfast  was 
given  Douglass  at  Belfast,  at  which  the 
local  branch  of  the  British  and  Foreign 
Anti-slavery  Society  presented  him  with 
a  Bible  bound  in  gold. 

After  four  months  in  Ireland,  where 
he  delivered  more  than  fifty  lectures, 
Douglass  and  his  friend  Buffum  left  Ire 
land,  on  January  10,  1846,  for  Scotland, 
where  another  important  reform  was  in 
progress.  It  was  an  epoch  of  rebellion 
against  the  established  order  of  things. 
The  spirit  of  revolt  was  in  the  air.  The 
disruption  movement  in  the  Established 
Church  of  Scotland,  led  by  the  famous 


52  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
Dr.  Chalmers,  had  culminated  in  1843 
in  the  withdrawal  of  four  hundred  and 
seventy  ministers,  who  gave  up  the 
shelter  and  security  of  the  Establishment 
for  the  principle  that  a  congregation 
should  choose  its  own  pastor,  and  organ 
ized  themselves  into  the  Free  Protesting 
Church,  commonly  called  the  Free  Kirk. 
An  appeal  had  been  issued  to  the  Presby 
terian  churches  of  the  world  for  aid  to 
establish  a  sustentation  fund  for  the  use 
of  the  new  church.  Among  the  contri 
butions  from  the  United  States  was  one 
from  a  Presbyterian  church  in  Charles 
ton,  South  Carolina.  Just  before  this 
contribution  arrived  a  South  Carolina 
judge  had  condemned  a  Northern  man 
to  death  for  aiding  the  escape  of  a  female 
slave.  This  incident  had  aroused  horror 
and  indignation  throughout  Great  Brit 
ain.  Lord  Brougham  had  commented 
on  it  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  Lord 
Chief  Justice  Denham  had  characterized 
it  "in  the  name  of  all  the  judges  of 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  53 
England"  as  a  " horrible  iniquity." 
O'Connell  had  rejected  proffered  contri 
butions  from  the  Southern  States,  and  an 
effort  was  made  in  Scotland  to  have  the 
South  Carolina  money  sent  back.  The 
attempt  failed  ultimately  j  but  the  agita 
tion  on  the  subject  was  for  a  time  very 
fierce,  and  gave  Douglass  and  his  friends 
the  opportunity  to  strike  many  telling 
blows  at  slavery.  He  had  never  minced 
his  words  in  the  United  States,  and  he 
now  handled  without  gloves  the  govern 
ment  whose  laws  had  driven  him  from 
its  borders. 

From  Scotland  Douglass  went  to  Eng 
land,  where  he  found  still  another  great 
reform  movement  nearing  a  triumphant 
conclusion.  The  Anti-corn  Law  League, 
after  many  years  of  labor,  under  the 
leadership  of  Eichard  Cobden  and  John 
Bright,  for  the  abolition  of  the  protec 
tive  tariff  on  wheat  and  other  kinds  of 
grain  for  food,  had  brought  its  agitation 
to  a  successful  issue  5  and  on  June  26, 


54  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
1846,  the  Corn  Laws  were  repealed. 
The  generous  enthusiasm  for  reform  of 
one  kind  or  another  that  pervaded  the 
British  Islands  gave  ready  sympathy 
and  support  to  the  abolitionists  in  their 
mission.  The  abolition  of  slavery  in  the 
colonies  had  been  decreed  by  Parliament 
in  1833,  but  the  old  leaders  in  that  re 
form  had  not  lost  their  zeal  for  liberty. 
George  Thompson,  who  with  Clarkson 
and  Wilberforce  had  led  the  British 
abolitionists,  invited  Garrison  over  to 
help  reorganize  the  anti-slavery  senti 
ment  of  Great  Britain  against  American 
slavery;  and  in  August,  1846,  Garrison 
went  to  England,  in  that  year  evidently 
a  paradise  of  reformers. 

During  the  week  beginning  May  17, 
1846,  Douglass  addressed  respectively 
the  annual  meeting  of  the  British  and 
Foreign  Anti-slavery  Society,  a  peace 
convention,  a  suffrage  extension  meet 
ing,  and  a  temperance  convention,  and 
spoke  also  at  a  reception  where  efforts 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  55 
were  made  to  induce  him  to  remain  in 
England,  and  money  subscribed  to  bring 
over  his  family.  As  will  be  seen  here 
after,  he  chose  the  alternative  of  return 
ing  to  the  United  States. 

On  August  7,  1846,  Douglass  addressed 
the  World's  Temperance  Convention, 
held  at  Oovent  Garden  Theatre,  Lon 
don.  There  were  many  speakers,  and 
the  time  allotted  to  each  was  brief ;  but 
Douglass  never  lost  an  opportunity  to 
attack  slavery,  and  he  did  so  on  this 
occasion  over  the  shoulder  of  temper 
ance.  He  stated  that  he  was  not  a  dele 
gate  to  the  convention,  because  those 
whom  he  might  have  represented  were 
placed  beyond  the  pale  of  American 
temperance  societies  either  by  slavery 
or  by  an  inveterate  prejudice  against 
their  color.  He  referred  to  the  mobbing 
of  a  procession  of  colored  temperance  so 
cieties  in  Philadelphia  several  years  be 
fore,  the  burning  of  one  of  their  churches, 
and  the  wrecking  of  their  best  temper- 


56  FBEDEBICK  DOUGLASS 
ance  hall.  These  remarks  brought  out 
loud  protests  and  calls  for  order  from  the 
American  delegates  present,  who  mani 
fested  the  usual  American  sensitiveness 
to  criticism,  especially  on  the  subject  of 
slavery ;  but  the  house  sustained  Doug 
lass,  and  demanded  that  he  go  on. 
Douglass  was  denounced  for  this  in  a 
letter  to  the  New  York  papers  by  Rev. 
Dr.  Cox,  one  of  the  American  delegates. 
Douglass's  reply  to  this  letter  gave  him 
the  better  of  the  controversy.  He  some 
times  expressed  the  belief,  founded  on 
long  experience,  that  doctors  of  divinity 
were,  as  a  rule,  among  the  most  ardent 
supporters  of  slavery.  Dr.  Cox,  who 
seems  at  least  to  have  met  the  descrip 
tion,  was  also  a  delegate  to  the  Evangeli 
cal  Alliance,  which  met  in  London,  Au 
gust  19,  1846,  with  a  membership  of  one 
thousand  delegates  from  fifty  different 
evangelical  sects  throughout  the  world. 
The  question  was  raised  in  the  conven 
tion  whether  or  not  fellowship  should  be 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  57 
held  with  slaveholders.  Dr.  Cox  and 
the  other  Americans  held  that  it  should, 
and  their  views  ultimately  prevailed. 
Douglass  made  some  telling  speeches  at 
Anti -slavery  League  meetings,  in  de 
nunciation  of  the  cowardice  of  the  Alli 
ance,  and  won  a  wide  popularity. 

Douglass  remained  in  England  two 
years.  Not  only  did  this  visit  give  him 
a  great  opportunity  to  influence  British 
public  opinion  against  slavery,  but  the 
material  benefits  to  himself  were  inesti 
mable.  He  had  left  the  United  States 
a  slave  before  the  law,  denied  every  civil 
right  and  every  social  privilege,  literally 
a  man  without  a  country,  and  forced  to 
cross  the  Atlantic  among  the  cattle  in 
the  steerage  of  the  steamboat.  During 
his  sojourn  in  Great  Britain  an  English 
lady,  Mrs.  Ellen  Eichardson,  of  New 
castle,  had  raised  seven  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars,  which  was  paid  over  to 
Hugh  Auld,  of  Maryland,  to  secure 
Douglass's  legal  manumission  j  and,  not 


58  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
content  with  this  generous  work,  the 
same  large-hearted  lady  had  raised  by 
subscription  about  two  thousand  five 
hundred  dollars,  which  Douglass  carried 
back  to  the  United  States  as  a  free  gift, 
and  used  to  start  his  newspaper.  He 
had  met  in  Europe,  as  he  said  in  a  fare 
well  speech,  men  quite  as  white  as  he 
had  ever  seen  in  the  United  States  and 
of  quite  as  noble  exterior,  and  had  seen 
in  their  faces  no  scorn  of  his  complexion. 
He  had  travelled  over  the  four  king 
doms,  and  had  encountered  no  sign  of 
disrespect.  He  had  been  lionized  in 
London,  had  spoken  every  night  of  his 
last  month  there,  and  had  declined  as 
many  more  invitations.  He  had  shaken 
hands  with  the  venerable  Clarkson,  and 
had  breakfasted  with  the  philosopher 
Combe,  the  author  of  The  Constitution 
of  Man.  He  had  won  the  friendship 
of  John  Bright,  had  broken  bread  with 
Sir  John  Bowring,  had  been  introduced 
to  Lord  Brougham,  the  brilliant  leader 


FBEDEKICK  DOUGLASS  59 
of  the  Liberal  party,  and  had  listened 
to  his  wonderful  eloquence.  He  had 
met  Douglas  Jerrold,  the  famous  wit, 
and  had  been  entertained  by  the  poet, 
William  Howitt,  who  made  a  farewell 
speech  in  his  honor.  Everywhere  he 
had  denounced  slavery,  everywhere  hos 
pitable  doors  had  opened  wide  to  receive 
him,  everywhere  he  had  made  friends 
for  himself  and  his  cause.  A  slave  and 
an  outcast  at  home,  he  had  been  made 
to  feel  himself  a  gentleman,  had  been 
the  companion  of  great  men  and  good 
women.  Urged  to  remain  in  this  land 
of  freedom,  and  offered  aid  to  establish 
himself  in  life  there,  his  heart  bled  for 
his  less  fortunate  brethren  in  captivity  ; 
and,  with  the  God-speed  of  his  English 
friends  ringing  in  his  ears,  he  went  back 
to  America, — to  scorn,  to  obloquy,  to 
ostracism,  but  after  all  to  the  work  to 
which  he  had  been  ordained,  and  which 
he  was  so  well  qualified  to  perform. 


VII. 

DOUGLASS  landed  April  20,  1847. 
He  returned  to  the  United  States  with 
the  intention  of  publishing  the  news 
paper  for  which  his  English  friends 
had  so  kindly  furnished  the  means  ;  but 
his  plan  meeting  with  opposition  from 
his  abolitionist  friends,  who  thought  the 
platform  offered  him  a  better  field  for 
usefulness,  he  deferred  the  enterprise 
until  near  the  end  of  the  year.  In  the 
mean  time  he  plunged  again  into  the 
thick  of  the  anti-slavery  agitation.  We 
find  him  lecturing  in  May  in  the  Broad 
way  Tabernacle,  New  York,  and  writing 
letters  to  the  anti-slavery  papers.  In 
June  he  was  elected  president  of  the 
New  England  Anti-slavery  Convention. 
In  August  and  September  he  went  on  a 
lecturing  tour  with  Garrison  and  others 
through  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio.  On 
this  tour  the  party  attended  the  com 
mencement  exercises  of  Oberlin  College, 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  61 
famous  for  its  anti-slavery  principles  and 
practice,  and  spoke  to  immense  meet 
ings  at  various  places  in  Ohio  and  New 
York.  Their  cause  was  growing  in 
popular  favor ;  and,  in  places  where  for 
merly  they  had  spoken  out  of  doors  be 
cause  of  the  difficulty  of  securing  a  place 
of  meeting,  they  were  now  compelled  to 
speak  in  the  open  air,  because  the 
churches  and  halls  would  not  contain 
their  audiences. 

On  December  3, 1847,  the  first  number 
of  the  North  Star  appeared.  Douglass's 
abolitionist  friends  had  not  yet  become 
reconciled  to  this  project,  and  his  per 
sistence  in  it  resulted  in  a  temporary 
coldness  between  them.  They  very  nat 
urally  expected  him  to  be  guided  by 
their  advice.  They  had  found  him  on 
the  wharf  at  New  Bedford,  and  given 
him  his  chance  in  life ;  and  they  may 
easily  be  pardoned  for  finding  it  pre 
sumptuous  in  him  to  disregard  their  ad 
vice  and  adopt  a  new  line  of  conduct 


62  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
without  consulting  them.  Mr.  Garrison 
wrote  in  a  letter  to  his  wife  from  Cleve 
land,  "  It  will  also  greatly  surprise  our 
friends  in  Boston  to  hear  that  in  regard 
to  his  prospect  of  establishing  a  paper 
here,  to  be  called  the  North  Star,  he 
never  opened  his  lips  to  me  on  the  sub 
ject  nor  asked  my  advice  in  any  partic 
ular  whatever."  But  Samuel  May,  Jr., 
in  a  letter  written  to  one  of  Douglass's 
English  friends,  in  which  he  mentions 
this  charge  of  Garrison,  adds,  "It  is 
only  common  justice  to  Frederick  Doug 
lass  to  inform  you  that  this  is  a  mistake  j 
that,  on  the  contrary,  he  did  speak  to 
Mr.  Garrison  about  it,  just  before  he  was 
taken  ill  at  Cleveland."  The  probabil 
ity  is  that  Douglass  had  his  mind  made 
up,  and  did  not  seek  advice,  and  that 
Mr.  Garrison  did  not  attach  much  im 
portance  to  any  casual  remark  Douglass 
may  have  made  upon  the  subject.  In  a 
foot-note  to  the  Life  and  Times  of  Gar 
rison  it  is  stated  :  — 


FEEDEEICK   DOUGLASS        63 

"This  enterprise  was  not  regarded 
with  favor  by  the  leading  abolitionists, 
who  knew  only  too  well  the  precarious 
support  which  a  fifth  anti-slavery  paper, 
edited  by  a  colored  man,  must  have,  and 
who  appreciated  to  the  full  Douglass's 
unrivalled  powers  as  a  lecturer  in  the 
field.  ...  As  anticipated,  it  nearly 
proved  the  ruin  of  its  projector ;  but 
by  extraordinary  exertions  it  was  kept 
alive,  not,  however,  on  the  platform  of 
Garrisonian  abolitionism.  The  necessary 
support  could  only  be  secured  by  a  change 
of  principles  in  accordance  with  Mr. 
Douglass's  immediate  (political  aboli 
tion)  environment." 

Douglass's  own  statement  does  not 
differ  very  widely  from  this,  except  that 
he  does  not  admit  the  mercenary  motive 
for  his  change  of  principles.  It  was  in 
deference,  however,  to  the  feelings  of 
his  former  associates  that  the  North  Star 
was  established  at  Eochester  instead  of 
in  the  East,  where  the  field  for  anti- 


64       FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 

slavery  papers  was  already  fully  occu 
pied.  In  Eochester,  then  as  now  the 
centre  of  a  thrifty,  liberal,  and  progres 
sive  population,  Douglass  gradually  won 
the  sympathy  and  support  which  such 
an  enterprise  demanded. 

The  North  Star,  in  size,  typography, 
and  interest,  compared  favorably  with 
the  other  weeklies  of  the  day,  and  lived 
for  seventeen  years.  It  had,  however, 
its  "ups  and  downs. "  At  one  time  the 
editor  had  mortgaged  his  house  to  pay 
the  running  expenses ;  but  friends  came 
to  his  aid,  his  debts  were  paid,  and  the 
circulation  of  the  paper  doubled.  In 
My  Bondage  and  my  Freedom  Douglass 
gives  the  names  of  numerous  persons 
who  helped  him  in  these  earlier  years  of 
editorial  effort,  among  whom  were  a 
dozen  of  the  most  distinguished  public 
men  of  his  day.  After  the  North  Star 
had  been  in  existence  several  years,  its 
name  was  changed  to  Frederick  Douglass's 
Paper,  to  give  it  a  more  distinctive  desig- 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  65 
nation,  the  newspaper  firmament  already 
scintillating  with  many  other  " Stars." 

In  later  years  Douglass  speaks  of  this 
newspaper  enterprise  as  one  of  the  wisest 
things  he  ever  undertook.  To  para 
phrase  Lord  Bacon's  famous  maxim, 
much  reading  of  life  and  of  books  had 
made  him  a  full  man,  and  much  speak 
ing  had  made  him  a  ready  man.  The  at 
tempt  to  put  facts  and  arguments  into 
literary  form  tended  to  make  him  more 
logical  in  reasoning  and  more  exact  in 
statement.  One  of  the  effects  of  Doug 
lass's  editorial  responsibility  and  the  in 
fluences  brought  to  bear  upon  him.  by 
reason  of  it,  was  a  change  in  his  political 
views.  Until  he  began  the  publication 
of  the  North  Star  and  for  several  years 
thereafter,  he  was,  with  the  rest  of  the 
Garrisonians,  a  pronounced  disunionist. 
He  held  to  the  Garrisonian  doctrine  that 
the  pro-slavery  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  was  a  "league  with  death  and  a 
covenant  with  hell,"  maintained  that 


66  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLxlSS 
anti-slavery  men  should  not  vote  under 
it,  and  advocated  the  separation  of  the 
free  States  as  the  only  means  of  prevent 
ing  the  utter  extinction  of  freedom  by 
the  ever- advancing  encroachments  of 
the  slave  power.  In  Eochester  he  found 
himself  in  the  region  where  the  Liberty 
party,  under  the  leadership  of  James  G. 
Birney,  Salmon  P.  Chase,  Gerrit  Smith, 
and  others,  had  its  largest  support.  The 
Liberty  party  maintained  that  slavery 
could  be  fought  best  with  political 
weapons,  that  by  the  power  of  the  bal 
lot  slavery  could  be  confined  strictly 
within  its  constitutional  limits  and  pre 
vented  from  invading  new  territory,  and 
that  it  could  be  extinguished  by  the  re 
spective  States  whenever  the  growth  of 
public  opinion  demanded  it.  One  wing 
of  the  party  took  the  more  extreme 
ground  that  slavery  was  contrary  to  the 
true  intent  and  meaning  of  the  Consti 
tution,  and  demanded  that  the  country 
should  return  to  the  principles  of  liberty 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  67 
upon  which,  it  was  founded.  Though 
the  more  radical  abolitionists  were  for 
a  time  bitterly  opposed  to  these  views, 
yet  the  Liberty  party  was  the  natural 
outgrowth  of  the  abolition  agitation. 
Garrison  and  Phillips  and  Douglass  and 
the  rest  had  planted,  Birney  and  Gerrit 
Smith  and  Chase  and  the  rest  watered, 
and  the  Union  party,  led  by  the  great 
emancipator,  garnered  the  grain  after 
a  bloody  harvest. 

Several  influences  must  have  co-oper 
ated  to  modify  Douglass's  political  views. 
The  moral  support  and  occasional  finan 
cial  aid  given  his  paper  by  members 
of  the  Liberty  party  undoubtedly  pre 
disposed  him  favorably  to  their  opin 
ions.  His  retirement  as  agent  of  the 
Anti-slavery  Society  and  the  coolness 
resulting  therefrom  had  taken  him  out 
of  the  close  personal  contact  with  those 
fervent  spirits  who  had  led  the  van  in 
the  struggle  for  liberty.  Their  zeal  had 
been  more  disinterested,  perhaps,  than 


68  FBEDEBICK  DOUGLASS 
Douglass's  own  $  for,  after  all,  they  had 
no  personal  stake  in  the  outcome,  while 
to  Douglass  and  his  people  the  abolition 
of  slavery  was  a  matter  of  life  and  death. 
Serene  in  the  high  altitude  of  their  con 
victions,  the  Garrisonians  would  accept 
110  half-way  measures,  would  compromise 
no  principles,  and,  if  their  right  arm 
offended  them,  would  cut  it  off  with 
sublime  fortitude  and  cast  it  into  the 
fire.  They  wanted  a  free  country,  where 
the  fleeing  victim  of  slavery  could  find  a 
refuge.  Douglass  perceived  the  im 
mense  advantage  these  swarming  mill 
ions  would  gain  through  being  free  in 
the  States  where  they  already  were.  He 
had  always  been  minded  to  do  the  best 
thing  possible.  When  a  slave,  he  had 
postponed  his  escape  until  it  seemed  en 
tirely  feasible.  "When  denied  cabin  pas 
sage  on  steamboats,  he  had  gone  in  the 
steerage  or  on  deck.  When  he  had  been 
refused  accommodation  in  a  hotel,  he  had 
sought  it  under  any  humble  roof  that 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  69 
offered.  It  would  have  been  a  fine  thing 
in  the  abstract  to  refuse  the  half-loaf, 
but  in  that  event  we  should  have  had  no 
Frederick  Douglass.  It  was  this  very 
vein  of  prudence,  keeping  always  in 
view  the  object  to  be  attained,  and  in  a 
broad,  non- Jesuitical  sense  subordinating 
the  means  to  the  end,  that  enabled 
Douglass  to  prolong  his  usefulness  a 
generation  after  the  abolition  of  slavery. 
Douglass  in  his  Life  and  Times  states  his 
own  case  as  follows  :  — 

"  After  a  time,  a  careful  reconsidera 
tion  of  the  subject  convinced  me  that 
there  was  no  necessity  for  dissolving  the 
union  between  the  Northern  and  South 
ern  States ;  that  to  seek  this  dissolution 
was  no  part  of  my  duty  as  an  abolitionist ; 
that  to  abstain  from  voting  was  to  re 
fuse  to  exercise  a  legitimate  and  power 
ful  means  for  abolishing  slavery;  and 
that  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  not  only  contained  no  guarantees 
in  favor  of  slavery,  but,  on  the  contrary, 


70       FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 

was  in  its  letter  and  spirit  an  anti- 
slavery  instrument,  demanding  the  abo 
lition  of  slavery  as  a  condition  of  its  own 
existence,  as  the  supreme  law  of  the 
land." 

This  opinion  was  not  exactly  the  opin 
ion  of  the  majority  of  the  Liberty  party, 
which  did  not  question  the  constitu 
tionality  of  slavery  in  the  slave  States. 
Neither  was  it  the  opinion  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  which  in  the  Dred  Scott  case  held 
that  the  Constitution  guaranteed  not  only 
the  right  to  hold  slaves,  but  to  hold  them 
in  free  States.  Nevertheless,  entertain 
ing  the  views  he  did,  Douglass  was  able 
to  support  the  measures  which  sought  to 
oppose  slavery  through  political  action. 
In  August,  1848,  while  his  Garrisonian 
views  were  as  yet  unchanged,  he  had 
been  present  as  a  spectator  at  the  Free 
Soil  Convention  at  Buffalo.  In  his  Life 
and  Times  he  says  of  this  gathering : 
"This  Buffalo  Convention  of  Free  Soil- 
ers,  however  low  their  standard,  did 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  71 
lay  the  foundation  of  a  grand  super 
structure.  It  was  a  powerful  link  in 
the  chain  of  events  by  which  the  slave 
system  has  been  abolished,  the  slave 
emancipated,  and  the  country  saved 
from  dismemberment."  In  1851  Doug 
lass  announced  that  his  sympathies  were 
with  the  voting  abolitionists,  and  thence 
forth  he  supported  by  voice  and  pen 
Hale,  Fremont,  and  Lincoln,  the  suc 
cessive  candidates  of  the  new  party. 

Douglass's  political  defection  very 
much  intensified  the  feeling  against  him 
among  his  former  coadjutors.  The  Gar- 
risonians,  with  their  usual  plain  speak 
ing,  did  not  hesitate  to  say  what  they 
thought  of  Douglass.  Their  three  papers, 
the  Liberator,  the  Standard,  and  the 
Freeman,  assailed  Douglass  fiercely,  and 
charged  him  with  treachery,  inconsist 
ency,  ingratitude,  and  all  the  other 
crimes  so  easily  imputed  to  one  who 
changes  his  opinions.  Garrison  and 
Phillips  and  others  of  his  former  asso- 


72  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
elates  denounced  him  as  a  deserter,  and 
attributed  his  change  of  heart  to  merce 
nary  motives.  Douglass  seems  to  have 
borne  himself  with  rare  dignity  and  mod 
eration  in  this  trying  period.  He  real 
ized  perfectly  well  that  he  was  on  the 
defensive,  and  that  the  burden  devolved 
upon  him  to  justify  his  change  of  front. 
This  he  seems  to  have  attempted  vigor 
ously,  but  by  argument  rather  than  in 
vective.  Even  during  the  height  of  the 
indignation  against  him  Douglass  dis 
claimed  any  desire  to  antagonize  his 
former  associates.  He  simply  realized 
that  there  was  more  than  one  way  to 
fight  slavery, — which  knew  a  dozen 
ways  to  maintain  itself, —  and  had  con 
cluded  to  select  the  one  that  seemed 
most  practical.  He  was  quite  willing 
that  his  former  friends  should  go  their 
own  way.  "No  personal  assaults,"  he 
wrote  to  George  Thompson,  the  English 
abolitionist,  who  wrote  to  him  for  an 
explanation  of  the  charges  made  against 


FEEDEEICK   DOUGLASS        73 

him,  "  shall  ever  lead  me  to  forget  that 
some,  who  in  America  have  often  made 
me  the  subject  of  personal  abuse,  are  in 
their  own  way  earnestly  working  for 
the  abolition  of  slavery." 

In  later  years,  when  political  action 
had  resulted  in  abolition,  some  of  these 
harsh  judgments  were  modified,  and 
Douglass  and  his  earlier  friends  met  in 
peace  and  harmony.  The  debt  he  owed 
to  William  Lloyd  Garrison  he  ever  de 
lighted  to  acknowledge.  His  speech  on 
the  death  of  Garrison  breathes  in  every 
word  the  love  and  honor  in  which  he 
held  him.  In  one  of  the  last  chapters  of 
his  Life  and  Times  he  makes  a  sweeping 
acknowledgment  of  his  obligations  to  the 
men  and  women  who  rendered  his  career 
possible. 

"It  was  my  good  fortune,"  he  writes, 
"to  get  out  of  slavery  at  the  right  time, 
to  be  speedily  brought  in  contact  with 
that  circle  of  highly  cultivated  men  and 
women,  banded  together  for  the  over- 


74  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
throw  of  slavery,  of  which  William 
Lloyd  Garrison  was  the  acknowledged 
leader.  To  these  friends,  earnest,  cour 
ageous,  inflexible,  ready  to  own  me  as  a 
man  and  a  brother,  against  all  the  scorn, 
contempt,  and  derision  of  a  slavery- 
polluted  atmosphere,  I  owe  my  success 
in  life. » 


VIII. 

EVENTS  moved  rapidly  in  the  decade 
preceding  the  war.  In  1850  the  new 
Fugitive  Slave  Law  brought  discourage 
ment  to  the  hearts  of  the  friends  of  lib 
erty.  Douglass's  utterances  during  this 
period  breathed  the  fiery  indignation 
which  he  felt  when  the  slave-driver's 
whip  was  heard  cracking  over  the  free 
States,  and  all  citizens  were  ordered  to 
aid  in  the  enforcement  of  this  inhuman 
statute  when  called  upon.  This  law 
really  defeated  its  own  purpose.  There 
were  thousands  of  conservative  Northern 
men,  who,  recognizing  the  constitutional 
guarantees  of  slavery  and  the  difficulty 
of  abolishing  it  unless  the  South  should 
take  the  initiative,  were  content  that  it 
should  be  preserved  intact  so  long  as  it 
remained  a  local  institution.  But  when 
the  attempt  was  made  to  make  the  North 
wash  the  South' s  dirty  linen,  and  trans 
form  every  man  in  the  Northern  States 


76  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
into  a  slave- catcher,  it  wrought  a  revul 
sion  of  feeling  that  aroused  widespread 
sympathy  for  the  slave  and  strengthened 
the  cause  of  freedom  amazingly.  Thou 
sands  of  escaped  slaves  were  living  in 
Northern  communities.  Some  of  them 
had  acquired  homes,  had  educated  their 
children,  and  in  some  States  had  become 
citizens  and  voters.  Already  social  pa 
riahs,  restricted  generally  to  menial 
labor,  bearing  the  burdens  of  poverty 
and  prejudice,  they  now  had  thrust  be 
fore  them  the  spectre  of  the  kidnapper, 
the  slave- catcher  with  his  affidavit,  and 
the  United  States  Court,  which  was  made 
by  this  law  the  subservient  tool  of  tyr 
anny.  This  law  gave  Douglass  and  the 
other  abolitionists  a  new  text.  It  was  a 
set-back  to  their  cause;  but  they  were 
not  entirely  disheartened,  for  they  saw 
in  it  the  desperate  expedients  by  which 
it  was  sought  to  bolster  up  an  institution 
already  doomed  by  the  advancing  tide 
of  civilization. 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  77 
The  loss  of  slaves  had  become  a  serious 
drain  upon  the  border  States.  The 
number  of  refugees  settled  in  the  North 
was,  of  course,  largely  a  matter  of  esti 
mate.  Eunaway  slaves  were  not  apt  to 
advertise  their  status,  but  rather  to  con 
ceal  it,  so  that  most  estimates  were  more 
likely  to  be  under  than  over  the  truth. 
Henry  Wilson  places  the  number  in  the 
free  States  at  twenty  thousand.  There 
were  in  Boston  in  1850,  according  to  a 
public  statement  of  Theodore  Parker, 
from  four  to  six  hundred  ;  and  in  other 
New  England  towns,  notably  New  Bed 
ford,  the  number  was  large.  Other  es 
timates  place  the  figures  much  higher. 
Mr.  Siebert,  in  his  Underground  Railroad, 
after  a  careful  calculation  from  the  best 
obtainable  data,  puts  the  number  of  fu 
gitives  aided  in  Ohio  alone  at  forty 
thousand  in  the  thirty  years  preceding 
1860,  and  in  the  same  period  nine 
thousand  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia 
alone,  which  was  one  of  the  principal 


78  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
stations  of  the  underground  railroad 
and  the  home  of  William  Still,  whose 
elaborate  work  on  the  Underground  Rail 
road  gives  the  details  of  many  thrilling 
escapes. 

In  the  work  of  assisting  runaway  slaves 
Douglass  found  congenial  employment. 
It  was  exciting  and  dangerous,  but  in 
spiring  and  soul-satisfying.  He  kept  a 
room  in  his  house  always  ready  for  fugi 
tives,  having  with  him  as  many  as  eleven 
at  a  time.  He  would  keep  them  over 
night,  pay  their  fare  on  the  train  for 
Canada,  and  give  them  half  a  dollar 
extra.  And  Canada,  to  her  eternal 
honor  be  it  said,  received  these  assisted 
emigrants,  with  their  fifty  cents  apiece, 
of  alien  race,  debauched  by  slavery,  gave 
them  welcome  and  protection,  refused  to 
enter  into  diplomatic  relations  for  their 
rendition  to  bondage,  and  spoke  well  of 
them  as  men  and  citizens  when  Henry 
Clay  and  the  other  slave  leaders  de 
nounced  them  as  the  most  worthless  of 


FEEDEBICK  DOUGLASS       79 

their  class.  The  example  of  Canada  may 
be  commended  to  those  persons  in  the 
United  States,  of  little  faith,  who,  be 
cause  in  thirty  years  the  emancipated 
race  have  not  equalled  the  white  man  in 
achievement,  are  fearful  lest  nothing 
good  can  be  expected  of  them. 

In  the  stirring  years  of  the  early  fifties 
Douglass  led  a  busy  life.  He  had  each 
week  to  fill  the  columns  of  his  paper 
and  raise  the  money  to  pay  its  expenses. 
Add  to  this  his  platform  work  and  the 
underground  railroad  work,  which  con 
sisted  not  only  in  personal  aid  to  the 
fugitives,  but  in  raising  money  to  pay 
their  expenses,  and  his  time  was  very 
adequately  employed.  In  every  anti- 
slavery  meeting  his  face  was  welcome, 
and  his  position  as  a  representative 
of  his  own  peculiar  people  was  daily 
strengthened. 

When  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  in  1852,  set 
the  world  on  fire  over  the  wrongs  of  the 
slave, —  or  rather  the  wrongs  of  slavery, 


80  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
for  that  wonderful  book  did  not  portray 
the  negro  as  the  only  sufferer  from  this 
hoary  iniquity, —  Mrs.  Stowe,  in  her 
new  capacity  as  a  champion  of  liberty, 
conceived  the  plan  of  raising  a  fund  for 
the  benefit  of  the  colored  race,  and  in 
1853  invited  Douglass  to  visit  her  at 
Andover,  Massachusetts,  where  she  con 
sulted  with  him  in  reference  to  the  es 
tablishment  of  an  industrial  institute  or 
trades  school  for  colored  youth,  with  a 
view  to  improving  their  condition  in  the 
free  States.  Douglass  approved  heartily 
of  this  plan,  and  through  his  paper  made 
himself  its  sponsor.  When,  later  on, 
Mrs.  Stowe  abandoned  the  project,  Doug 
lass  was  made  the  subject  of  some  criti 
cism,  though  he  was  not  at  all  to  blame 
for  Mrs.  Stowe's  altered  plans.  In  our 
own  time  the  value  of  such  institutions 
has  been  widely  recognized,  and  the 
success  of  those  at  Hampton  and  Tus- 
kegee  has  stimulated  anew  the  interest 
in  industrial  education  as  one  important 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  81 
factor  in  the  elevation  of  the  colored 
race. 

In  the  years  from  1853  to  1860  the 
slave  power,  inspired  with  divine  mad 
ness,  rushed  headlong  toward  its  doom. 
The  arbitrary  enforcement  of  the  Fugi 
tive  Slave  Act ;  the  struggle  between 
freedom  and  slavery  in  Kansas ;  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  by  which  a  learned 
and  subtle  judge,  who  had  it  within 
his  power  to  enlarge  the  boundaries  of 
human  liberty  and  cover  his  own  name 
with  glory,  deliberately  and  laboriously 
summarized  and  dignified  with  the  sanc 
tion  of  a  court  of  last  resort  all  the  most 
odious  prejudices  that  had  restricted 
the  opportunities  of  the  colored  people ; 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  ; 
the  John  Brown  raid ;  the  assault  on 
Charles  Sumner, —  each  of  these  inci 
dents  has  been,  in  itself,  the  subject  of 
more  than  one  volume.  Of  these  events 
the  Dred  Scott  decision  was  the  most 
disheartening.  Douglass  was  not  proof 


82  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
against  the  universal  gloom,  and  began 
to  feel  that  there  was  little  hope  of  the 
peaceful  solution  of  the  question  of  slav 
ery.  It  was  in  one  of  his  darker  mo 
ments  that  old  Sojourner  Truth,  whose 
face  appeared  in  so  many  anti-slavery 
gatherings,  put  her  famous  question, 
which  breathed  a  sublime  and  childlike 
faith  in  God,  even  when  his  hand  seemed 
heaviest  on  her  people:  " Frederick," 
she  asked,  " is  God  dead?"  The  orator 
paused  impressively,  and  then  thundered 
in  a  voice  that  thrilled  his  audience  with 
prophetic  intimations,  "No,  God  is  not 
dead;  and  therefore  it  is  that  slavery 
must  end  in  blood  \ '  > 

During  this  period  John  Brown 
stamped  his  name  indelibly  upon  Amer 
ican  history.  It  was  almost  inevitable 
that  a  man  of  the  views,  activities,  and 
prominence  of  Douglass  should  become 
acquainted  with  John  Brown.  Their 
first  meeting,  however,  was  in  1847, 
more  than  ten  years  before  the  tragic 


FREDEKICK  DOUGLASS  83 
episode  at  Harper's  Ferry.  At  that 
time  Brown  was  a  merchant  at  Spring 
field,  Massachusetts,  whither  Douglass 
was  invited  to  visit  him.  In  his  Life 
and  Times  he  describes  Brown  as  a  pros 
perous  merchant,  who  in  his  home  lived 
with  the  utmost  abstemiousness,  in  order 
that  he  might  save  money  for  the  great 
scheme  he  was  already  revolving.  i  i  His 
wife  believed  in  him,  and  his  children 
observed  him  with  reverence.  His  ar 
guments  seemed  to  convince  all,  his 
appeals  touched  all,  and  his  will  im 
pressed  all.  Certainly,  I  never  felt 
myself  in  the  presence  of  stronger  relig 
ious  influence  than  while  in  this  man's 
house. ' '  There  in  his  own  home,  where 
Douglass  stayed  as  his  guest,  Brown  out 
lined  a  plan  which  in  substantially  the 
same  form  he  held  dear  to  his  heart  for  a 
decade  longer.  This  plan,  briefly  stated, 
was  to  establish  camps  at  certain  easily 
defended  points  in  the  Alleghany  Moun 
tains  ;  to  send  emissaries  down  to  the 


84  FBEDEBICK  DOUGLASS 
plantations  in  the  lowlands,  starting  in 
Virginia,  and  draw  off  the  slaves  to 
these  mountain  fastnesses;  to  maintain 
bands  of  them  there,  if  possible,  as  a 
constant  menace  to  slavery  and  an  ex 
ample  of  freedom ;  or,  if  that  were  im 
practicable,  to  lead  them  to  Canada 
from  time  to  time  by  the  most  available 
routes.  Wild  as  this  plan  may  seem  in 
the  light  of  the  desperate  game  subse 
quently  played  by  slavery,  it  did  not 
at  the  time  seem  impracticable  to  such 
level-headed  men  as  Theodore  Parker 
and  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson. 

Douglass's  views  were  very  much 
colored  by  his  association  with  Brown ; 
but,  with  his  usual  prudence  and  fore 
sight,  he  pointed  out  the  difficulties  of 
this  plan.  From  the  time  of  their  first 
meeting  the  relations  of  the  two  men 
were  friendly  and  confidential.  Captain 
Brown  had  his  scheme  ever  in  mind, 
and  succeeded  in  convincing  Douglass 
and  others  that  it  would  subserve  a  use- 


FBEDERICK  DOUGLASS  85 
ful  purpose, —  that,  even  if  it  resulted  in 
failure,  it  would  stir  the  conscience  of 
the  nation  to  a  juster  appreciation  of  the 
iniquity  of  slavery. 

The  Kansas  troubles,  however,  turned 
Brown's  energies  for  a  time  into  a  dif 
ferent  channel.  After  Kansas  had  been 
secured  to  freedom,  he  returned  with 
renewed  ardor  to  his  old  project.  He 
stayed  for  three  weeks  at  Douglass's 
house  at  Kochester,  and  while  there  car 
ried  on  an  extensive  correspondence  with 
sympathizers  and  supporters,  and  thor 
oughly  demonstrated  to  all  with  whom 
he  conversed  that  he  was  a  man  of  one 
all-absorbing  idea. 

In  1859,  very  shortly  before  the  raid 
at  Harper's  Ferry,  Douglass  met  Brown 
by  appointment,  in  an  abandoned  stone 
quarry  near  Chambersburg,  Pennsyl 
vania.  John  Brown  was  already  an 
outlaw,  with  a  price  upon  his  head  ;  for 
a  traitor  had  betrayed  his  plan  the  year 
before,  and  he  had  for  this  reason  de- 


86  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
ferred  its  execution  for  a  year.  The 
meeting  was  surrounded  by  all  the  mys 
tery  and  conducted  with  all  the  precau 
tions  befitting  a  meeting  of  conspirators. 
Brown  had  changed  the  details  of  his 
former  plan,  and  told  Douglass  of  his 
determination  to  take  Harper's  Ferry. 
Douglass  opposed  the  measure  vehe 
mently,  pointing  out  its  certain  and  dis 
astrous  failure.  Brown  met  each  argu 
ment  with  another,  and  was  not  to  be 
swayed  from  his  purpose.  They  spent 
more  than  a  day  together  discussing  the 
details  of  the  movement.  When  the 
more  practical  Douglass  declined  to  take 
part  in  Brown's  attempt,  the  old  man 
threw  his  arms  around  his  swarthy 
friend,  in  a  manner  typical  of  his  friend 
ship  for  the  dark  race,  and  said  :  "  Come 
with  me,  Douglass,  I  will  defend  you 
with  my  life.  I  want  you  for  a  special 
purpose.  When  I  strike,  the  bees  will 
begin  to  swarm,  and  I  shall  want  you  to 
help  hive  them. ' '  But  Douglass  would 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  87 
not  be  persuaded.  His  abandonment  of 
his  old  friend  on  the  eve  of  a  desperate 
enterprise  was  criticised  by  some,  who, 
as  Douglass  says,  "kept  even  farther 
from  this  brave  and  heroic  man  than  I 
did."  John  Brown  went  forth  to  meet 
a  felon's  fate  and  wear  a  martyr's  crown  : 
Douglass  lived  to  fight  the  battles  of  his 
race  for  years  to  come.  There  was  room 
for  both,  and  each  played  the  part  for 
which  he  was  best  adapted.  It  would 
have  strengthened  the  cause  of  liberty 
very  little  for  Douglass  to  die  with 
Brown. 

It  is  quite  likely,  however,  that  he 
narrowly  escaped  Brown's  fate.  When 
the  raid  at  Harper's  Ferry  had  roused 
the  country,  Douglass,  with  other  lead 
ing  Northern  men,  was  indicted  in 
Virginia  for  complicity  in  the  affair. 
Brown's  correspondence  had  fallen  into 
the  hands  of  the  Virginia  authorities, 
and  certain  letters  seemed  to  implicate 
Douglass.  A  trial  in  Virginia  meant 


88  FREDEKICK  DOUGLASS 
almost  certain  death.  Governor  "Wise, 
of  Virginia,  would  have  hung  him  with 
cheerful  alacrity,  and  publicly  expressed 
his  desire  to  do  so.  Douglass,  with 
timely  warning  that  extradition  papers 
had  been  issued  for  his  arrest,  escaped  to 
Canada.  He  had  previously  planned  a 
second  visit  to  England,  and  the  John 
Brown  affair  had  delayed  his  departure 
by  some  days.  He  sailed  from  Quebec, 
November  12,  1859. 

After  a  most  uncomfortable  winter 
voyage  of  fourteen  days  Douglass  found 
himself  again  in  England,  an  object  of 
marked  interest  and  in  very  great  de 
mand  as  a  speaker.  Six  months  he 
spent  on  the  hospitable  shores  of  Great 
Britain,  lecturing  on  John  Brown,  on 
slavery  and  other  subjects,  and  renewing 
the  friendships  of  former  years.  Being 
informed  of  the  death  of  his  youngest 
daughter,  he  cut  short  his  visit,  which 
he  had  meant  to  extend  to  France,  and 
returned  to  the  United  States.  So  rapid 


FKEDEBICK  DOUGLASS  89 
had  been  the  course  of  events  since  his 
departure  that  the  excitement  over  the 
John  Brown  raid  had  subsided.  The 
first  Lincoln  campaign  was  in  active 
progress ;  and  the  whole  country  quiv 
ered  with  vague  anticipation  of  the  im 
pending  crisis  which  was  to  end  the 
conflict  of  irreconcilable  principles,  and 
sweep  slavery  out  of  the  path  of  civili 
zation  and  progress.  Douglass  plunged 
into  the  campaign  with  his  accustomed 
zeal,  and  did  what  he  could  to  promote 
the  triumph  of  the  Eepublican  party. 
Lincoln  was  elected,  and  in  a  few  short 
months  the  country  found  itself  in  the 
midst  of  war.  God  was  not  dead,  and 
slavery  was  to  end  in  blood. 


IX. 

EVER  mindful  of  his  people  and  seek 
ing  always  to  promote  their  welfare, 
Douglass  was  one  of  those  who  urged,  in 
all  his  addresses  at  this  period,  the  abo 
lition  of  slavery  and  the  arming  of  the 
negroes  as  the  most  effective  means  of 
crushing  the  rebellion.  In  1862  he  de 
livered  a  series  of  lectures  in  New  Eng 
land  under  the  auspices  of  the  recently 
formed  Emancipation  League,  which 
contended  for  abolition  as  a  military 
necessity. 

The  first  or  conditional  emancipation 
proclamation  was  issued  in  September, 
1862 ;  and  shortly  afterward  Douglass 
published  a  pamphlet  for  circulation  in 
Great  Britain,  entitled  The  Slave's  Appeal 
to  Great  Britain,  in  which  he  urged  the 
English  people  to  refuse  recognition  of 
the  independence  of  the  Confederate 
States.  He  always  endeavored  in  his 
public  utterances  to  remove  the  doubts 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  91 
and  fears  of  those  who  were  tempted  to 
leave  the  negroes  in  slavery  because  of 
the  difficulty  of  disposing  of  them  after 
they  became  free.  Douglass,  with  the 
simple,  direct,  primitive  sense  of  justice 
that  had  always  marked  his  mind,  took 
the  only  true  ground  for  the  solution  of 
the  race  problems  of  that  or  any  other 
epoch, — that  the  situation  should  be  met 
with  equal  and  exact  justice,  and  that 
his  people  should  be  allowed  to  do  as 
they  pleased  with  themselves,  "  subject 
only  to  the  same  great  laws  which  apply 
to  other  men."  He  was  a  conspicuous 
figure  at  the  meeting  in  Tremont  Tem 
ple,  Boston,  on  January  1,  1863,  when 
the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  hourly 
expected  by  an  anxious  gathering, 
finally  flashed  over  the  wires. 

Douglass  was  among  the  first  to  sug 
gest  the  employment  of  colored  troops 
in  the  Union  army.  In  spite  of  all  as 
sertions  to  the  contrary,  he  foresaw  in 
the  war  the  end  of  slavery.  He  per- 


92  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
ceived  that  by  the  enlistment  of  colored 
men  not  only  would  the  Northern  arms 
be  strengthened,  but  his  people  would 
win  an  opportunity  to  exercise  one  of 
the  highest  rights  of  freemen,  and  by 
valor  on  the  field  of  battle  to  remove 
some  of  the  stigma  that  slavery  had 
placed  upon  them.  He  strove  through 
every  channel  at  his  command  to  im 
press  his  views  upon  the  country;  and 
his  efforts  helped  to  swell  the  current  of 
opinion  which  found  expression,  after 
several  intermediate  steps,  in  the  enlist 
ment  of  two  colored  regiments  by  Gov 
ernor  Andrew,  the  famous  war  governor 
of  Massachusetts,  a  State  foremost  in  all 
good  works.  When  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
granted  permission  for  the  recruiting  of 
these  regiments,  Douglass  issued  through 
his  paper  a  stirring  appeal,  which  was 
copied  in  the  principal  journals  of  the 
Union  States,  exhorting  his  people  to 
rally  to  this  call,  to  seize  this  opportu 
nity  to  strike  a  blow  at  slavery  and  win 


FBEDERICK   DOUGLASS        93 

the  gratitude  of  the  country  and  the 
blessings  of  liberty  for  themselves  and 
their  posterity. 

Douglass  exerted  himself  personally  in 
procuring  enlistments,  his  two  sons, 
Charles  and  Lewis,  being  the  first  in 
New  York  to  enlist  j  for  the  two  Massa 
chusetts  regiments  were  recruited  all 
over  the  North.  Lewis  H.  Douglass, 
sergeant-major  in  the  Fifty-fourth  Mas 
sachusetts,  was  among  the  foremost  on 
the  ramparts  at  Fort  Wagner.  Both 
these  sons  of  Douglass  survived  the  war, 
and  are  now  well  known  and  respected 
citizens  of  Washington,  D.  C.  The  Fifty- 
fourth  Massachusetts,  under  the  gallant 
but  ill-fated  Colonel  Shaw,  won  undying 
glory  in  the  conflict;  and  the  heroic 
deeds  of  the  officers  and  men  of  this  reg 
iment  are  fittingly  commemorated  in  the 
noble  monument  by  St.  Gaudens,  re 
cently  erected  on  Boston  Common,  to 
stand  as  an  inspiration  of  freedom  and 
patriotism  for  the  future  and  as  testi- 


94       FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
mony  that  a  race  which  for  generations 
had  been  deprived  of  arms  and  liberty 
could  worthily  bear  the  one  and  defend 
the  other. 

Douglass  was  instrumental  in  per 
suading  the  government  to  put  colored 
soldiers  on  an  equal  footing  with  white 
soldiers,  both  as  to  pay  and  protection. 
In  the  course  of  these  efforts  he  was 
invited  to  visit  President  Lincoln.  He 
describes  this  memorable  interview  in 
detail  in  his  Life  and  Times.  The  Presi 
dent  welcomed  him  with  outstretched 
hands,  put  him  at  once  at  his  ease,  and 
listened  patiently  and  attentively  to  all 
that  he  had  to  say.  Douglass  main 
tained  that  colored  soldiers  should  re 
ceive  the  same  pay  as  white  soldiers, 
should  be  protected  and  exchanged  as 
prisoners,  and  should  be  rewarded,  by 
promotion,  for  deeds  of  valor.  The 
President  suggested  some  of  the  diffi 
culties  to  be  overcome ;  but  both  he  and 
Secretary  of  War  Stanton,  whom  Doug- 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  95 
lass  also  visited,  assured  him  that  in 
the  end  his  race  should  be  justly  treated. 
Stanton,  before  the  close  of  the  interview 
with  him,  promised  Douglass  a,  commis 
sion  as  assistant  adjutant  to  General 
Lorenzo  Thomas,  then  recruiting  colored 
troops  in  the  Mississippi  Valley.  But 
Stanton  evidently  changed  his  mind, 
since  the  commission,  somewhat  to  Doug 
lass's  chagrin,  never  came  to  hand. 

When  McClellan  had  been  relieved 
by  Grant,  and  the  new  leader  of  the 
Union  forces  was  fighting  the  stubbornly 
contested  campaign  of  the  Wilderness, 
President  Lincoln  again  sent  for  Doug 
lass,  to  confer  with  him  with  reference 
to  bringing  slaves  in  the  rebel  States 
within  the  Union  lines,  so  that  in  the 
event  of  premature  peace  as  many  slaves 
;as  possible  might  be  free.  Douglass 
undertook,  at  the  President's  suggestion, 
to  organize  a  band  of  colored  scouts  to 
go  among  the  negroes  and  induce  them 
to  enter  the  Union  lines.  The  plan  was 


96  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
never  carried  out,  owing  to  the  rapid 
success  of  the  Union  arms ;  but  the 
interview  greatly  impressed  Douglass 
with  the  sincerity  of  the  President's  con 
victions  against  slavery  and  his  desire 
to  see  the  war  result  in  its  overthrow. 
What  the  colored  race  may  have  owed 
to  the  services,  in  such  a  quarter,  oi 
such  an  advocate  as  Douglass,  brave, 
eloquent,  high-principled,  and  an  ex 
ample  to  Lincoln  of  what  the  enslaved 
race  was  capable  of,  can  only  be  im 
agined.  That  Lincoln  was  deeply  im 
pressed  by  these  interviews  is  a  matter 
of  history. 

Douglass  supported  vigorously  the 
nomination  of  Lincoln  for  a  second  term, 
and  was  present  at  his  inauguration. 
And  a  few  days  later,  while  the  inspired 
words  of  the  inaugural  address,  long 
bracketed  with  the  noblest  of  human 
utterances,  were  still  ringing  in  his  ears, 
he  spoke  at  the  meeting  held  in  Eoches- 
ter  to  mourn  the  death  of  the  martyred 


FEEDEEICK   DOUGLASS        97 

President,  and  made  one  of  his  most 
eloquent  and  moving  addresses.  It  was 
i  time  that  wrung  men's  hearts,  and 
lone  more  than  the  strong-hearted  man's 
ose  race  had  found  its  liberty  through 
him  who  lay  dead  at  Washington,  slain 
by  the  hand  of  an  assassin  whom  slavery 
had  spawned. 


X. 

WITH  the  fall  of  slavery  and  the 
emancipation  of  the  colored  race  the 
heroic  epoch  of  Douglass's  career  may 
be  said  to  have  closed.  The  text  upon 
which  he  so  long  had  preached  had  been 
expunged  from  the  national  bible  j  and 
he  had  been  a  one-text  preacher,  a  one- 
theme  orator.  He  felt  the  natural  reac 
tion  which  comes  with  relief  from  high 
mental  or  physical  tension,  and  won 
dered,  somewhat  sadly,  what  he  should 
do  with  himself,  and  how  he  should  earn 
a  living.  The  same  considerations,  in 
varying  measure,  applied  to  others  of 
the  anti-slavery  reformers.  Some,  un 
able  to  escape  the  reforming  habit, 
turned  their  attention  to  different  social 
evils,  real  or  imaginary.  Others,  suffi 
ciently  supplied  with  this  world's  goods 
for  their  moderate  wants,  withdrew  from 
public  life.  Douglass  was  thinking  of 
buying  a  farm  and  retiring  to  rural  soli- 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  99 
udes,  when  a  new  career  opened  up  for 
lim  in  the  lyceum  lecture  field.  The 
S"orth  was  favorably  disposed  toward 
colored  men.  They  had  acquitted  them- 
elves  well  during  the  war,  and  had 
hown  becoming  gratitude  to  their  deliv 
erers.  The  once  despised  abolitionists 
rere  now  popular  heroes.  Douglass's 
Checkered  past  seemed  all  the  more 
•omantic  in  the  light  of  the  brighter 
>resent,  like  a  novel  with  a  pleasant 
aiding  ;  and  those  who  had  hung  thrill- 
ngly  upon  his  words  when  he  denounced 
lavery  now  listened  with  interest  to 
That  he  had  to  say  upon  other  topics, 
le  spoke  sometimes  on  "Woman  Suffrage, 
>f  which  he  was  always  a  consistent  ad- 
rocate.  His  most  popular  lecture  was 
>ne  on  "  Self- made  Men."  Another  on 
'Ethnology,"  in  which  he  sought  a 
cientific  basis  for  his  claim  for  the 
legro's  equality  with  the  white  man, 
ras  not  so  popular  —  with  white  people. 
?he  wave  of  enthusiasm  which  had  swept 


100  FBEDEKICK  DOUGLASS 
the  enfranchised  slaves  into  what  seemed 
at  that  time  the  safe  harbor  of  constitu 
tional  right  was  not,  after  all,  based  on 
abstract  doctrines  of  equality  of  intellect, 
but  on  an  inspiring  sense  of  justice  (long 
dormant  under  the  influence  of  slavery, 
but  thoroughly  awakened  under  the 
moral  stress  of  the  war),  which  conceded 
to  every  man  the  right  of  a  voice  in  his 
own  government  and  the  right  to  an 
equal  opportunity  in  life  to  develop  such 
powers  as  he  possessed,  however  great 
or  small  these  might  be. 

But  Douglass's  work  in  direct  behalf 
of  his  race  was  not  yet  entirely  done. 
In  fact,  he  realized  very  distinctly  the 
vast  amount  of  work  that  would  be 
necessary  to  lift  his  people  up  to  the 
level  of  their  enlarged  opportunities ; 
and,  as  may  be  gathered  from  some  of 
his  published  utterances,  he  foresaw  that 
the  process  would  be  a  long  one,  and 
that  their  friends  might  weary  some 
times  of  waiting,  and  that  there  would 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  101 
be  reactions  toward  slavery  which  would 
rob  emancipation  of  much  of  its  value. 
It  was  the  very  imminence  of  such  back 
ward  steps,  in  the  shape  of  various  re 
strictive  and  oppressive  laws  promptly 
enacted  by  the  old  slave  States  under 
President  Johnson's  administration,  that 
led  Douglass  to  urge  the  enfranchisement 
of  the  freedmen.  He  maintained  that 
in  a  free  country  there  could  be  no  safe 
or  logical  middle  ground  between  the 
status  of  freeman  and  that  of  serf.  There 
has  been  much  criticism  because  the 
negro,  it  is  said,  acquired  the  ballot 
prematurely.  There  seemed  imperative 
reasons,  besides  that  of  political  expedi 
ency,  for  putting  the  ballot  in  his  hands. 
Eecent  events  have  demonstrated  that 
this  necessity  is  as  great  now  as  then. 
The  assumption  that  negroes — under 
which  generalization  are  included  all 
men  of  color,  regardless  of  that  sympathy 
to  which  kinship  at  least  should  entitle 
many  of  them — are  unfit  to  have  a  voice 


102  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
in  government  is  met  by  the  words  of 
Lincoln,  which  have  all  the  weight  of  a 
political  axiom  :  "No  man  can  be  safely 
trusted  to  govern  other  men  without 
their  consent."  The  contention  that  a 
class  who  constitute  half  the  population 
of  a  State  shall  be  entirely  unrepresented 
in  its  councils,  because,  forsooth,  their 
will  there  expressed  may  affect  the  gov 
ernment  of  another  class  of  the  same 
general  population,  is  as  repugnant  to 
justice  and  human  rights  as  was  the  in 
stitution  of  slavery  itself.  Such  a  condi 
tion  of  affairs  has  not  the  melodramatic 
and  soul-stirring  incidents  of  chattel 
slavery,  but  its  effects  can  be  as  far- 
reaching  and  as  debasing.  There  has 
been  some  manifestation  of  its  possible 
consequences  in  the  recent  outbreaks  of 
lynching  and  other  race  oppression  in 
the  South.  The  practical  disfranchise- 
ment  of  the  colored  people  in  several 
States,  and  the  apparent  acquiescence 
by  the  Supreme  Court  in  the  attempted 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  103 
annulment,  by  restrictive  and  oppressive 
laws,  of  the  war  amendments  to  the  Con 
stitution,  have  brought  a  foretaste  of 
what  might  be  expected  should  the  spirit 
of  the  Dred  Scott  decision  become  again 
the  paramount  law  of  the  land. 

On  February  7,  1866,  Douglass  acted 
as  chief  spokesman  of  a  committee  of 
leading  colored  men  of  the  country,  who 
called  upon  President  Johnson  to  urge 
the  importance  of  enfranchisement.  Mr. 
Johnson,  true  to  his  Southern  instincts, 
was  coldly  hostile  to  the  proposition,  re 
counted  all  the  arguments  against  it,  and 
refused  the  committee  an  opportunity  to 
reply.  The  matter  was  not  left  with 
Mr.  Johnson,  however  ;  and  the  commit 
tee  turned  its  attention  to  the  leading 
Eepublican  statesmen,  in  whom  they 
found  more  impressionable  material. 
Under  the  leadership  of  Senators  Sum- 
ner,  Wilson,  Wade,  and  others,  the 
matter  was  fully  argued  in  Congress,  the 
Democratic  party  being  in  opposition, 


104     FREDERICK  DOUGLASS 
as  always  in  national  politics,  to  any 
measure  enlarging  the  rights  or  liberties 
of  the  colored  race. 

In  September,  1866,  Douglass  was 
elected  a  delegate  from  Rochester  to  the 
National  Loyalists'  Convention  at  Phila 
delphia,  called  to  consider  the  momen 
tous  questions  of  government  growing  out 
of  the  war.  While  he  had  often  attended 
anti-slavery  conventions  as  the  repre 
sentative  of  a  small  class  of  abolitionists, 
his  election  to  represent  a  large  city  in 
a  national  convention  was  so  novel  a  de 
parture  from  established  usage  as  to  pro 
voke  surprise  and  comment  all  over  the 
country.  On  the  way  to  Philadelphia 
he  was  waited  upon  by  a  committee  of 
other  delegates,  who  came  to  his  seat  on 
the  train  and  urged  upon  him  the  im 
propriety  of  his  taking  a  seat  as  a  dele 
gate.  Douglass  listened  patiently,  but 
declined  to  be  moved  by  their  arguments. 
He  replied  that  he  had  been  duly  elected 
a  delegate  from  Rochester,  and  he  would 


FKEDEBICK  DOUGLASS     105 

represent  that  city  in  the  convention. 
A  procession  of  the  members  and  friends 
of  the  convention  was  to  take  place  on 
its  opening  day.  Douglass  was  solemnly 
warned  that,  if  he  walked  in  the  proces 
sion,  he  would  probably  be  mobbed. 
But  he  had  been  mobbed  before,  more 
than  once,  and  had  lived  through  it  j 
and  he  promptly  presented  himself  at 
the  place  of  assembly.  His  reception  by 
his  fellow- delegates  was  not  cordial,  and 
he  seemed  condemned  to  march  alone  in 
the  procession,  when  Theodore  Tilton, 
at  that  time  editor  of  the  Independent, 
paired  off  with  him,  and  marched  by 
his  side  through  the  streets  of  the  Quaker 
City.  The  result  was  gratifying  alike  to 
Douglass  and  the  friends  of  liberty  and 
progress.  He  was  cheered  enthusiasti 
cally  all  along  the  line  of  march,  and 
became  as  popular  in  the  convention  as 
he  had  hitherto  been  neglected. 

A  romantic  incident  of  this  march  was 
a  pleasant  meeting,  on  the  street,  with  a 


106  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
daughter  of  Mrs.  Lucretia  Auld,  the  mis 
tress  who  had  treated  him  kindly  during 
his  childhood  on  the  Lloyd  plantation. 
The  Aulds  had  always  taken  an  interest 
in  Douglass's  career, — he  had,  indeed, 
given  the  family  a  wide  though  not 
altogether  enviable  reputation  in  his 
books  and  lectures, — and  this  good  lady 
had  followed  the  procession  for  miles, 
that  she  might  have  the  opportunity  to 
speak  to  her  grandfather's  former  slave 
and  see  him  walk  in  the  procession. 

In  the  convention  "the  ever-ready 
and  imperial  Douglass,"  as  Colonel  Hig- 
ginson  describes  him,  spoke  in  behalf  of 
his  race.  The  convention,  however,  di 
vided  upon  the  question  of  negro  suf 
frage,  and  adjourned  without  decisive 
action.  But  under  President  Grant's 
administration  the  Fourteenth  Amend 
ment  was  passed,  and  by  the  solemn 
sanction  of  the  Constitution  the  ballot 
was  conferred  upon  the  black  men  upon 
the  same  terms  as  those  upon  which  it 
was  enjoyed  by  the  whites. 


XL 

IT  is  perhaps  fitting,  before  we  take 
leave  of  Douglass,  to  give  some  estimate 
of  the  remarkable  oratory  which  gave 
him  his  hold  upon  the  past  generation. 
For,  while  his  labors  as  editor  and  in 
other  directions  were  of  great  value  to 
the  cause  of  freedom,  it  is  upon  his 
genius  as  an  orator  that  his  fame  must 
ultimately  rest. 

While  Douglass's  color  put  him  in  a 
class  by  himself  among  great  orators,  and 
although  his  slave  past  threw  around 
him  an  element  of  romance  that  added 
charm  to  his  eloquence,  these  were  mere 
incidental  elements  of  distinction.  The 
North  was  full  of  fugitive  slaves,  and 
more  than  one  had  passionately  pro 
claimed  his  wrongs.  There  were  several 
colored  orators  who  stood  high  in  the 
councils  of  the  abolitionists  and  did  good 
service  for  the  cause  of  humanity. 

Douglass  possessed,  in  large  measure, 


108  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
the  physical  equipment  most  impressive 
in  an  orator.  He  was  a  man  of  magnifi 
cent  figure,  tall,  strong,  his  head  crowned 
with  a  mass  of  hair  which  made  a  strik 
ing  element  of  his  appearance.  He  had 
deep -set  and  flashing  eyes,  a  firm,  well- 
moulded  chin,  a  countenance  somewhat 
severe  in  repose,  but  capable  of  a  wide 
range  of  expression.  His  voice  was  rich 
and  melodious,  and  of  great  carrying 
power.  One  writer,  who  knew  him  in 
the  early  days  of  his  connection  with 
the  abolitionists,  says  of  him,  in  John 
son's  Sketches  of  Lynn :  — 

"  He  was  not  then  the  polished  orator 
he  has  since  become,  but  even  at  that 
early  date  he  gave  promise  of  the  grand 
part  he  was  to  play  in  the  conflict  which 
was  to  end  in  the  destruction  of  the  sys 
tem  that  had  so  long  cursed  his  race.  .  .  . 
He  was  more  than  six  feet  in  height ;  and 
his  majestic  form,  as  he  rose  to  speak, 
straight  as  an  arrow,  muscular  yet  lithe 
and  graceful,  his  flashing  eye,  and  more 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  109 
than  all  Ms  voice,  that  rivalled  Webster's 
in  its  richness  and  in  the  depth  and  so 
norousness  of  its  cadences,  made  up  such 
an  ideal  of  an  orator  as  the  listeners 
never  forgot.  And  they  never  forgot 
his  burning  words,  his  pathos,  nor  the 
rich  play  of  his  humor. " 

The  poet  "William  Howitt  said  of  him 
on  his  departure  from  England  in  1847, 
u  He  has  appeared  in  this  country  before 
the  most  accomplished  audiences,  who 
were  surprised,  not  only  at  his  talent,  but 
at  his  extraordinary  information." 

In  Ireland  he  was  introduced  as  "the 
black  O'  Connell, " —  a  high  compliment ; 
for  O'  Connell  was  at  that  time  the  idol 
of  the  Irish  people.  In  Scotland  they 
called  him  the  " black  Douglass,"  after 
his  prototype  in  The  Lady  of  the  Lake,  be 
cause  of  his  fire  and  vigor.  In  Eoches- 
ter  he  was  called  the  "swarthy  Ajax," 
from  his  indignant  denunciation  and  de 
fiance  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  of  1850, 
which  came  like  a  flash  of  lightning  to 


110      FEEDEEICK   DOUGLASS 
blast  the  hopes  of  the  anti-slavery  peo 
ple. 

Douglass  possessed  in  unusual  degree 
the  faculty  of  swaying  his  audience, 
sometimes  against  their  maturer  judg 
ment.  There  is  something  in  the  argu 
ment  from  first  principles  which,  if 
presented  with  force  and  eloquence, 
never  fails  to  appeal  to  those  who  are 
not  blinded  by  self-interest  or  deep- 
seated  prejudice.  Douglass's  argument 
was  that  of  the  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence, —  "that  all  men  are  created  equal ; 
that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator 
with  certain  inalienable  rights ;  that 
among  these  are  life,  liberty,  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness.  That,  to  secure 
these  rights,  governments  are  instituted 
among  men,  deriving  their  just  powers 
from  the  consent  of  the  governed."  The 
writer  may  be  pardoned  for  this  quota 
tion  ;  for  there  are  times  when  we  seem 
to  forget  that  now  and  here,  no  less  than 
in  ancient  Eome,  "  eternal  vigilance  is 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  111 
the  price  of  liberty. 7 '  Douglass  brushed 
aside  all  sophistries  about  Constitutional 
guarantees,  and  vested  rights,  and  in 
ferior  races,  and,  having  postulated  the 
right  of  men  to  be  free,  maintained  that 
negroes  were  men,  and  offered  himself 
as  a  proof  of  his  assertion, — an  argu 
ment  that  few  had  the  temerity  to  deny. 
If  it  were  answered  that  he  was  only 
half  a  negro,  he  would  reply  that  slavery 
made  no  such  distinction,  and  as  a  still 
more  irrefutable  argument  would  point 
to  his  friend,  Samuel  E.  Ward,  who 
often  accompanied  him  on  the  platform, 
—  an  eloquent  and  effective  orator,  of 
whom  "Wendell  Phillips  said  that  "he 
was  so  black  that,  if  he  would  shut  his 
eyes,  one  could  not  see  him.77  It  was 
difficult  for  an  auditor  to  avoid  assent  to 
such  arguments,  presented  with  all  the 
force  and  fire  of  genius,  relieved  by  a 
ready  wit,  a  contagious  humor,  and  a 
tear- compelling  power  rarely  excelled. 
"  As  a  speaker, ' J  says  one  of  his  con- 


112  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
temporaries,  "he  lias  few  equals.  It  is 
not  declamation,  but  oratory,  power  of 
description.  He  watches  the  tide  of  dis 
cussion,  and  dashes  into  it  at  once  with 
all  the  tact  of  the  forum  or  the  bar.  He 
has  art,  argument,  sarcasm,  pathos, — all 
that  first-rate  men  show  in  their  master 
efforts." 

His  readiness  was  admirably  illustrated 
in  the  running  debate  with  Captain 
Eynders,  a  ward  politician  and  gambler 
of  New  York,  who  led  a  gang  of  roughs 
with  the  intention  of  breaking  up  the 
meeting  of  the  American  Anti-slavery 
Society  in  New  York  City,  May  7,  1850. 
The  newspapers  had  announced  the  pro 
posed  meeting  in  language  calculated  to 
excite  riot.  Eynders  packed  the  meet 
ing  with  rowdies,  and  himself  occupied 
a  seat  on  the  platform.  Some  remark 
by  Mr.  Garrison,  the  first  speaker,  pro 
voked  a  demonstration  of  hostility. 
When  this  was  finally  quelled  by  a  prom 
ise  to  permit  one  of  the  Eynders  party 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  113 
to  reply,  Mr.  Garrison  finished  his 
speech.  He  was  followed  by  a  prosy  in 
dividual,  who  branded  the  negro  as 
brother  to  the  monkey.  Douglass,  per 
ceiving  that  the  speaker  was  wearying 
even  his  own  friends,  intervened  at  an 
opportune  moment,  captured  the  audi 
ence  by  a  timely  display  of  wit,  and  then 
improved  the  occasion  by  a  long  and  ef 
fective  speech.  When  Douglass  offered 
himself  as  a  refutation  of  the  last  speak 
er's  argument,  Eynders  replied  that 
Douglass  was  half  white.  Douglass 
thereupon  greeted  Eynders  as  his  half- 
brother,  and  made  this  expression  the 
catchword  of  his  speech.  When  Eynders 
interrupted  from  time  to  time,  he  was 
silenced  with  a  laugh.  He  appears  to 
have  been  a  somewhat  philosophic 
scoundrel,  with  an  appreciation  of  humor 
that  permitted  the  meeting  to  proceed  to 
an  orderly  close.  Douglass's  speech  was 
the  feature  of  the  evening.  "That 
gifted  man,"  said  Garrison,  in  whose 


114     FEEDEEICK   DOUGLASS 
Life  and  Times  a  graphic  description  of 
this  famous  meeting  is  given,   "  effect 
ually  put  to  shame  his  assailants  by  his 
wit  and  eloquence. '  ? 

A  speech  delivered  by  Douglass  at 
Concord,  New  Hampshire,  is  thus  de 
scribed  by  another  writer  :  "He  gradu 
ally  let  out  the  outraged  humanity  that 
was  laboring  in  him,  in  indignant  and 
terrible  speech.  .  .  .  There  was  great  ora 
tory  in  his  speech,  but  more  of  dignity 
and  earnestness  than  what  we  call  elo 
quence.  He  was  an  insurgent  slave, 
taking  hold  on  the  rights  of  speech,  and 
charging  on  his  tyrants  the  bondage  of 
his  race.'7 

In  Holland's  biography  of  Douglass 
extracts  are  given  from  letters  of  distin 
guished  contemporaries  who  knew  the 
orator.  Colonel  T.  "W.  Higginson  writes 
thus:  "I  have  hardly  heard  his  equal, 
in  grasp  upon  an  audience,  in  dramatic 
presentation,  in  striking  at  [the  pith  of 
an  ethical  question,  and  in  single  illus- 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  115 
trations  and  examples. ' 7  Another  writes, 
in  reference  to  the  impromptu  speech 
delivered  at  the  meeting  at  Eochester 
on  the  death  of  Lincoln :  "  I  have  heard 
Webster  and  Clay  in  their  best  moments, 
Channing  and  Beecher  in  their  highest 
inspirations.  I  never  heard  truer  elo 
quence.  I  never  saw  profounder  impres 
sion.7' 

The  published  speeches  of  Douglass, 
of  which  examples  may  be  found  scat 
tered  throughout  his  various  autobiog 
raphies,  reveal  something  of  the  powers 
thus  characterized,  though,  like  other 
printed  speeches,  they  lose  by  being  put 
in  type.  But  one  can  easily  imagine 
their  effect  upon  a  sympathetic  or  re 
ceptive  audience,  when  delivered  with 
flashing  eye  and  deep-toned  resonant 
voice  by  a  man  whose  complexion  and 
past  history  gave  him  the  highest  right 
bo  describe  and  denounce  the  iniquities 
Df  slavery  and  contend  for  the  rights  of  a 
race.  In  later  years,  when  brighter  days 


116  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
had  dawned  for  his  people,  and  age  had 
dimmed  the  recollection  of  his  sufferings 
and  tempered  his  animosities,  he  became 
more  charitable  to  his  old  enemies  ;  but 
in  the  vigor  of  his  manhood,  with  the 
memory  of  his  wrongs  and  those  of  his 
race  fresh  upon  him,  he  possessed  that  in 
dispensable  quality  of  the  true  reformer  : 
he  went  straight  to  the  root  of  the 
evil,  and  made  no  admissions  and  no 
compromises.  Slavery  for  him  was  con 
ceived  in  greed,  born  in  sin,  cradled  in 
shame,  and  worthy  of  utter  and  relent 
less  condemnation.  He  had  the  quality 
of  directness  and  simplicity.  When  Col 
lins  would  have  turned  the  abolition  in 
fluence  to  the  support  of  a  communistic 
scheme,  Douglass  opposed  it  vehemently. 
Slavery  was  the  evil  they  were  fighting, 
and  their  cause  would  be  rendered  still 
more  unpopular  if  they  ran  after  strange 
gods. 

When  Garrison  pleaded  for  the  right* 
of  man,  when  Phillips  with  golden  elo- 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  117 
quence  preached  the  doctrine  of  human 
ity  and  progress,  men  approved  and 
applauded.  "When  Parker  painted  the 
moral  baseness  of  the  times,  men  acqui 
esced  shamefacedly.  When  Channing 
preached  the  gospel  of  love,  they  wished 
the  dream  might  become  a  reality.  But, 
when  Douglass  told  the  story  of  his 
wrongs  and  those  of  his  brethren  in 
bondage,  they  felt  that  here  indeed  was 
slavery  embodied,  here  was  an  argu 
ment  for  freedom  that  could  not  be  gain 
said,  that  the  race  that  could  produce 
in  slavery  such  a  man  as  Frederick 
Douglass  must  surely  be  worthy  of  free 
dom. 

What  Douglass's  platform  utterances 
in  later  years  lacked  of  the  vehemence 
and  fire  of  his  earlier  speeches,  they 
made  up  in  wisdom  and  mature  judg 
ment.  There  is  a  note  of  exultation  in 
his  speeches  just  after  the  war.  Jehovah 
had  triumphed,  his  people  were  free. 
He  had  seen  the  Eed  Sea  of  blood  open 


118      FEEDEEICK   DOUGLASS 

and  let  them  pass,  and  engulf  the  enemy 

who  pursued  them. 

Among  the  most  noteworthy  of  Doug 
lass's  later  addresses  were  the  oration  at 
the  unveiling  of  the  Freedmen's  Monu 
ment  to  Abraham  Lincoln  in  Washing 
ton  in  1876,  which  may  be  found  in  his 
Life  and  Times;  the  address  on  Decora 
tion  Day,  New  York,  1878 ;  his  eulogy 
on  Wendell  Phillips,  printed  in  Austin's 
Life  and  Times  of  Wendell  Phillips;  and 
the  speech  on  the  death  of  Garrison, 
June,  1879.  He  lectured  in  the  Parker 
Fraternity  Course  in  Boston,  delivered 
numerous  addresses  to  gatherings  of  col 
ored  men,  spoke  at  public  dinners  and 
woman  suffrage  meetings,  and  retained 
his  hold  upon  the  interest  of  the  public 
down  to  the  very  day  of  his  death. 


XII. 

WITH  the  full  enfranchisement  of  his 
people,  Douglass  entered  upon  what  may 
be  called  the  third  epoch  of  his  career, 
that  of  fruition.  Not  every  worthy  life 
receives  its  reward  in  this  world;  but 
Douglass,  having  fought  the  good  fight, 
was  now  singled  out,  by  virtue  of  his 
prominence,  for  various  honors  and 
emoluments  at  the  hands  of  the  public. 
He  was  urged  by  many  friends  to  take 
up  his  residence  in  some  Southern  dis 
trict  and  run  for  Congress ;  but  from 
modesty  or  some  doubt  of  his  fitness  — 
which  one  would  think  he  need  not  have 
felt  —  and  the  consideration  that  his 
people  needed  an  advocate  at  the  North 
to  keep  alive  there  the  friendship  and 
zeal  for  liberty  that  had  accomplished  so 
much  for  his  race,  he  did  not  adopt  the 
suggestion. 

In  1860  Douglass  moved  to  Washing 
ton,  and  began  the  publication  of  the 


120  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
New  National  Era,  a  weekly  paper  de 
voted  to  the  interests  of  the  colored  race. 
The  venture  did  not  receive  the  support 
hoped  for;  and  the  paper  was  turned 
over  to  Douglass's  two  sons,  Lewis  and 
Frederick,  and  was  finally  abandoned, 
Douglass  having  sunk  about  ten  thousand 
dollars  in  the  enterprise.  Later  news 
papers  for  circulation  among  the  colored 
people  have  proved  more  successful ; 
and  it  ought  to  be  a  matter  of  interest 
that  the  race  which  thirty  years  ago 
could  not  support  one  publication,  ed 
ited  by  its  most  prominent  man,  now 
maintains  several  hundred  newspapers 
which  make  their  appearance  regularly. 
In  1871  Douglass  was  elected  presi 
dent  of  the  Freedman's  Bank.  This  ill- 
starred  venture  was  then  apparently  in 
the  full  tide  of  prosperity,  and  promised 
to  be  a  great  lever  in  the  uplifting  of  the 
submerged  race.  Douglass,  soon  after 
his  election  as  president,  discovered  the 
insolvency  of  the  institution,  and  in- 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  121 
sisted  that  it  be  closed  up.  The  negro 
was  in  the  hands  of  his  friends,  and  was 
destined  to  suffer  for  their  mistakes  as 
well  as  his  own. 

Other  honors  that  fell  to  Douglass  were 
less  empty  than  the  presidency  of  a 
bankrupt  bank.  In  1870  he  was  ap 
pointed  by  President  Grant  a  member 
of  the  Santo  Domingo  Commission,  the 
object  of  which  was  to  arrange  terms  for 
the  annexation  of  the  mulatto  republic 
to  the  Union.  Some  of  the  best  friends 
of  the  colored  race,  among  them  Senator 
Sumner,  opposed  this  step  ;  but  Doug 
lass  maintained  that  to  receive  Santo 
Domingo  as  a  State  would  add  to  its 
strength  and  importance.  The  scheme 
ultimately  fell  through,  whether  for  the 
good  or  ill  of  Santo  Domingo  can  best 
be  judged  when  the  results  of  more  re 
cent  annexation  schemes  become  appar 
ent.  Douglass  went  to  Santo  Domingo 
on  an  American  man- of-  war,  in  the 
company  of  three  other  commissioners. 


122  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
In  his  Life  and  Times  he  draws  a  pleas 
ing  contrast  between  some  of  his  earlier 
experiences  in  travelling,  and  the  terms 
of  cordial  intimacy  upon  which,  as  the 
representative  of  a  nation  which  a  few 
years  before  had  denied  him  a  passport, 
he  was  now  received  in  the  company  of 
able  and  distinguished  gentlemen. 

On  his  return  to  the  United  States 
Douglass  received  from  President  Grant 
an  appointment  as  member  of  the  legis 
lative  council,  or  upper  house  of  the 
legislature,  of  the  District  of  Columbia, 
where  he  served  for  a  short  time,  until 
other  engagements  demanded  his  resig 
nation,  his  son  being  appointed  to  fill 
out  his  term.  To  this  appointment 
Douglass  owed  the  title  of  "  Honorable/ ? 
subsequently  applied  to  him. 

In  1872  Douglass  presided  over  and 
addressed  a  convention  of  colored  men 
at  New  Orleans,  and  urged  them  to 
support  President  Grant  for  renomina- 
tion.  He  was  elected  a  presidential 


PEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  123 
elector  for  New  York,  and  on  the  meet 
ing  of  the  electoral  college  in  Albany, 
after  Grant's  triumphant  re-election, 
received  a  further  mark  of  confidence 
and  esteem  in  the  appointment  at  the 
hands  of  his  fellow-electors  to  carry  the 
sealed  vote  to  Washington.  Douglass 
sought  no  personal  reward  for  his  ser 
vices  in  this  campaign,  but  to  his  in 
fluence  was  due  the  appointment  of 
several  of  his  friends  to  higher  positions 
than  had  ever  theretofore  been  held  in 
this  country  by  colored  men. 

When  E.  B.  Hayes  was  nominated 
for  President,  Douglass  again  took  the 
stump,  and  received  as  a  reward  the 
honorable  and  lucrative  office  of  Mar 
shal  of  the  United  States  for  the  District 
of  Columbia.  This  appointment  was 
not  agreeable  to  the  white  people  of  the 
District,  whose  sympathies  were  largely 
pro-slavery ;  and  an  effort  was  made 
to  have  its  confirmation  defeated  in 
the  Senate.  The  appointment  was  con- 


124     FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
firmed,  however ;   and  Douglass  served 
his  term,  of  four  years,  in  spite  of  numer 
ous  efforts  to  bring  about  his  removal. 

In  1879  the  hard  conditions  under 
which  the  negroes  in  the  South  were 
compelled  to  live  led  to  a  movement 
to  promote  an  exodus  of  the  colored 
people  to  the  North  and  West,  in  the 
search  for  better  opportunities.  The 
white  people  of  the  South,  alarmed  at 
the  prospect  of  losing  their  labor,  were 
glad  to  welcome  Douglass  when  he  went 
among  them  to  oppose  this  movement, 
which  he  at  that  time  considered  detri 
mental  to  the  true  interests  of  .the  col 
ored  population. 

Under  the  Garfield  administration 
Douglass  was  appointed  in  May,  1881, 
recorder  of  deeds  for  the  District  of 
Columbia.  He  held  this  very  lucrative 
office  through  the  terms  of  Presidents 
Garfield  and  Arthur  and  until  removed 
by  President  Cleveland  in  1886,  having 
served  nearly  a  year  after  Cleveland's 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  125 
inauguration.  In.  1889  he  was  appointed 
by  President  Harrison  as  minister  resi 
dent  and  consul-general  to  the  Eepublic 
of  Hayti,  in  which  capacity  he  acted 
until  1891,  when  he  resigned  and  re 
turned  permanently  to  Washington. 
The  writer  has  heard  him  speak  with 
enthusiasm  of  the  substantial  progress 
made  by  the  Haytians  in  the  arts  of 
government  and  civilization,  and  with 
indignation  of  what  he  considered 
slanders  against  the  island,  due  to  igno 
rance  or  prejudice.  When  it  was  sug 
gested  to  Douglass  that  the  Haytians 
were  given  to  revolution  as  a  mode  of 
expressing  disapproval  of  their  rulers, 
he  replied  that  a  four  years7  rebellion 
had  been  fought  and  two  Presidents  as 
sassinated  in  the  United  States  during  a 
comparatively  peaceful  political  period 
in  Hayti.  His  last  official  connection 
with  the  Black  Eepublic  was  at  the 
World's  Columbian  Exposition  at  Chi 
cago  in  1893,  where  he  acted  as  agent  in 


126  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
charge  of  the  Haytian  Building  anc 
the  very  creditable  exhibit  therein  con 
tained.  His  stately  figure,  which  ag< 
had  not  bowed,  his  strong  dark  face 
and  his  head  of  thick  white  hair  made 
him  one  of  the  conspicuous  features  oi 
the  Exposition  ;  and  many  a  visitor  tool 
advantage  of  the  occasion  to  recall  olc 
acquaintance  made  in  the  stirring  anti 
slavery  days. 

In  1878  he  revisited  the  Lloyd  planta 
tion  in  Maryland,  where  he  had  spem 
part  of  his  youth,  and  an  affecting  meet 
ing  took  place  between  him  and  Thoma; 
Auld,  whom  he  had  once  called  master, 
Once  in  former  years  he  had  been  sough! 
out  by  the  good  lady  who  in  his  child 
hood  had  taught  him  to  read.  No 
where  more  than  in  his  own  account: 
of  these  meetings  does  the  essentially 
affectionate  and  forgiving  character  oi 
Douglass  and  his  race  become  apparent, 
and  one  cannot  refrain  from  thinking 
that  a  different  state  of  affairs  mighl 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  127 
prevail  in  the  Southern  States  if  other 
methods  than  those  at  present  in  vogue 
were  used  to  regulate  the  relations  be 
tween  the  two  races  and  their  various 
admixtures  that  make  up  the  Southern 
population. 

In  June,  1879,  a  bronze  bust  of  Doug 
lass  was  erected  in  Sibley  Hall  of  Eoch- 
ester  University  as  a  tribute  to  one 
who  had  shed  lustre  on  the  city.  In 
1882  occurred  the  death  of  Douglass's 
first  wife,  whom  he  had  married  in  New 
York  immediately  after  his  escape  from 
slavery,  and  who  had  been  his  faithful 
companion  through  so  many  years  of 
stress  and  struggle.  In  the  same  year 
his  Life  and  Times  was  published.  In 
1884  he  married  Miss  Helen  Pitts,  a 
white  woman  of  culture  and  refinement. 
There  was  some  criticism  of  this  step  by 
white  people  who  did  not  approve  of  the 
admixture  of  the  races,  and  by  colored 
persons  who  thought  their  leader  had 
slighted  his  own  people  when  he  over- 


128  FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS 
looked  the  many  worthy  and  accom 
plished  women  among  them.  But  Doug 
lass,  to  the  extent  that  he  noticed  these 
strictures  at  all,  declared  that  he  had  de 
voted  his  life  to  breaking  down  the  color 
line,  and  that  he  did  not  know  any  more 
effectual  way  to  accomplish  it;  that  he 
was  white  by  half  his  blood,  and,  as  he 
had  given  most  of  his  life  to  his  mother's 
race,  he  claimed  the  right  to  dispose  of 
the  remnant  as  he  saw  fit. 

The  latter  years  of  his  life  were  spent 
at  his  beautiful  home  known  as  Cedar 
Hill,  on  Anacostia  Heights,  near  Wash- 
ton,  amid  all 

"that  which  should  accompany  old 

age, 

As    honor,   love,    obedience,   troops  of 
friends." 

He  possessed  strong  and  attractive  so 
cial  qualities,  and  his  home  formed  a 
Mecca  for  the  advanced  and  aspiring  of 
his  race.  He  was  a  skilful  violinist,  and 
derived  great  pleasure  from  the  valuable 


FKEDEKICK  DOUGLASS  129 
instrument  he  possessed.  A  wholesome 
atmosphere  always  surrounded  him.  He 
had  never  used  tobacco  or  strong  liquors, 
and  was  clean  of  speech  and  pure  in  life. 

He  died  at  his  home  in  Washington, 
February  20,  1895.  He  had  been  per 
fectly  well  during  the  day,  and  was  sup 
posed  to  be  in  excellent  health.  He  had 
attended  both  the  forenoon  and  after 
noon  sessions  of  the  Women's  National 
Council,  then  in  session  at  Washington, 
and  had  been  a  conspicuous  figure  in  the 
audience.  On  his  return  home,  while 
speaking  to  his  wife  in  the  hallway  of 
his  house,  he  suddenly  fell,  and  before 
assistance  could  be  given  he  had  passed 
away. 

His  death  brought  forth  many  expres 
sions  from  the  press  of  the  land,  reflect 
ing  the  high  esteem  in  which  he  had 
been  held  by  the  public  for  a  generation. 
In  various  cities  meetings  were  held,  at 
which  resolutions  of  sorrow  and  appre 
ciation  were  passed,  and  delegations  ap- 


130  FKEDEKICK  DOUGLASS 
pointed  to  attend  his  funeral.  In  the 
United  States  Senate  a  resolution  was 
offered  reciting  that  in  the  person  of  the 
late  Frederick  Douglass  death  had  borne 
away  a  most  illustrious  citizen,  and  per 
mitting  the  body  to  lie  in  state  in  the 
rotunda  of  the  Capitol  on  Sunday.  The 
immediate  consideration  of  the  resolution 
was  asked  for.  Mr.  Gorman,  of  Mary 
land,  the  State  which  Douglass  honored 
by  his  birth,  objected ;  and  the  resolu 
tion  went  over. 

Douglass's  funeral  took  place  on  Feb 
ruary  25,  1895,  at  the  Metropolitan 
African  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in 
Washington,  and  was  the  occasion  of  a 
greater  outpouring  of  colored  people 
than  had  taken  place  in  "Washington 
since  the  unveiling  of  the  Lincoln  eman 
cipation  statue  in  1878.  The  body  was 
taken  from  Cedar  Hill  to  the  church  at 
half-past  nine  in  the  morning  ;  and  from 
that  hour  until  noon  thousands  of  per 
sons,  including  many  white  people, 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  131 
passed  in  double  file  through  the  build 
ing  and  viewed  the  body,  which  was  in 
charge  of  a  guard  of  honor  composed  of 
members  of  a  colored  camp  of  the  Sons 
of  Veterans.  The  church  was  crowded 
when  the  services  began,  and  several 
thousands  could  not  obtain  admittance. 
Delegations,  one  of  them  a  hundred 
strong,  were  present  from  a  dozen  cities. 
Among  the  numerous  floral  tributes  was 
a  magnificent  shield  of  roses,  orchids, 
and  palms,  sent  by  the  Haytian  govern 
ment  through  its  minister.  Another 
tribute  was  from  the  son  of  his  old  mas 
ter.  Among  the  friends  of  the  deceased 
present  were  Senators  Sherman  and 
Hoar,  Justice  Harlan  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  Miss  Susan  B.  Anthony,  and  Miss 
May  Wright  Sewall,  president  of  the 
Women's  National  Council.  The  tem 
porary  pall-bearers  were  ex-Senator 
B.  K.  Bruce  and  other  prominent  col 
ored  men  of  Washington.  The  sermon 
was  preached  by  Eev.  J.  G.  Jenifer. 


132  FKEDEKICK  DOUGLASS 
John  E.  Hutchinson,  the  last  of  the 
famous  Hutchinson  family  of  abolition 
singers,  who  with  his  sister  accompanied 
Douglass  on  his  first  voyage  to  England, 
sang  two  requiem  solos,  and  told  some 
touching  stories  of  their  old-time  friend 
ship.  The  remains  were  removed  to 
Douglass's  former  home  in  Eochester, 
where  he  was  buried  with  unusual  pub 
lic  honors. 

In  November,  1894,  a  movement  was 
begun  in  Eochester,  under  the  leader 
ship  of  J.  W.  Thompson,  with  a  view  to 
erect  a  monument  in  memory  of  the 
colored  soldiers  and  sailors  who  had 
fallen  during  the  Civil  War.  This  pro 
ject  had  the  hearty  support  and  assist 
ance  of  Douglass  5  and  upon  his  death 
the  plan  was  changed,  and  a  monument 
to  Douglass  himself  decided  upon.  A 
contribution  of  one  thousand  dollars 
from  the  Haytian  government  and  an 
appropriation  of  three  thousand  dollars 
from  the  State  of  New  York  assured  the 


FEEDEEICK  DOUGLASS  133 
success  of  the  plan.  September  15, 
1898,  was  the  date  set  for  the  unveiling 
of  the  monument  5  but,  owing  to  delay 
in  the  delivery  of  the  statue,  only  a  part 
of  the  contemplated  exercises  took  place. 
The  monument,  complete  with  the  ex 
ception  of  the  statue  which  was  to  sur 
mount  it,  was  formally  turned  over  to 
the  city,  the  presentation  speech  being 
made  by  Charles  P.  Lee  of  Eochester. 
A  solo  and  chorus  composed  for  the 
occasion  were  sung,  an  original  poem 
read  by  T.  Thomas  Fortune,  and  ad 
dresses  delivered  by  John  C.  Dancy  and 
John  H.  Smyth.  Joseph  H.  Douglass, 
a  talented  grandson  of  the  orator,  played 
a  violin  solo,  and  Miss  Susan  B.  An 
thony  recalled  some  reminiscences  of 
Douglass  in  the  early  anti-slavery  days. 
In  June,  1899,  the  bronze  statue  of 
Douglass,  by  Sidney  "W.  Edwards,  was 
installed  with  impressive  ceremonies. 
The  movement  thus  to  perpetuate  the 
memory  of  Douglass  had  taken  rise 


134  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS 
among  a  little  band  of  men  of  his  own 
race,  but  the  whole  people  of  Rochester 
claimed  the  right  to  participate  in  doing 
honor  to  their  distinguished  fellow-citi 
zen.  The  city  assumed  a  holiday  aspect. 
A  parade  of  military  and  civic  societies 
was  held,  and  an  appropriate  programme 
rendered  at  the  unveiling  of  the  monu 
ment.  Governor  Roosevelt  of  New 
York  delivered  an  address  ;  and  the  oc 
casion  took  a  memorable  place  in  the 
annals  of  Rochester,  of  which  city  Doug 
lass  had  said,  i  i  I  shall  always  feel  more 
at  home  there  than  anywhere  else  in  this 
country.'7 

In  March,  1895,  a  few  weeks  after  the 
death  of  Douglass,  Theodore  Tilton,  his 
personal  friend  for  many  years,  pub 
lished  in  Paris,  of  which  city  he  was 
then  a  resident,  a  volume  of  Sonnets  to  the 
Memory  of  Frederick  Douglass,  from  which 
the  following  lines  are  quoted  as  the  es 
timate  of  a  contemporary  and  a  fitting 
epilogue  to  this  brief  sketch  of  so  long 
and  full  a  life  :  — 


FREDERICK   DOUGLASS      135 

'  I  knew  the  noblest  giants  of  my  day, 
And  he  was  of  them  —  strong  ainid 

the  strong : 

But  gentle  too  :  for  though  he  suf 
fered  wrong, 
Yet  the  wrong-doer  never  heard  him 

say, 
i  Thee  also  do  I  hate. '  .  .  . 

u  A  lover's  lay — 
No     dirge  —  no     doleful     requiem 

song- 
Is  what  I  owe  him  ;  for  I  loved  him 

long; 
As  dearly  as  a  younger  brother  may. 

Proud  is  the  happy  grief  with  which  I 

sing; 
For,  O  my  Country !  in  the  paths 

of  men 
There  never    walked    a   grander 

man  than  he ! 
He  was   a  peer   of  princes  —  yea,    a 

king  ! 
Crowned  in  the  shambles  and   the 

prison-pen  ! 

The  noblest  Slave  that  ever  God 
set  free  ! ' ? 


BIBLIOGEAPHY. 

The  only  original  sources  of  informa 
tion  concerning  the  early  life  of  Fred 
erick  Douglass  are  the  three  autobiog 
raphies  published  by  him  at  various 
times;  and  the  present  writer,  like  all 
others  who  have  written  of  Mr.  Doug 
lass,  has  had  to  depend  upon  this  per 
sonal  record  for  the  incidents  of  Mr. 
Douglass's  life  in  slavery.  As  to  the 
second  period  of  his  life,  his  public 
career  as  anti-slavery  orator  and  agi 
tator,  the  sources  of  information  are  more 
numerous  and  varied.  The  biographies 
of  noted  abolitionists  whose  lives  ran 
from,  time  to  time  in  parallel  lines  with 
his  make  very  full  reference  to  Doug 
lass's  services  in  their  common  cause, 
the  one  giving  the  greatest  detail  being 
the  very  complete  and  admirable  Life 
and  Times  of  William  Lloyd  Garrison, 
by  his  sons,  which  is  in  effect  an  ex 
haustive  history  of  the  Garrisonian  move 
ment  for  abolition. 


BIBLIOGKAPHY  137 

The  files  of  the  Liberator,  Mr.  Gar 
rison's  paper,  which  can  be  found  in  a 
number  of  the  principal  public  libraries 
of  the  country,  constitute  a  vast  store 
house  of  information  concerning  the 
labors  of  the  American  Anti-slavery 
Society,  with  which  Douglass  was  identi 
fied  from  1843  to  1847,  the  latter  being 
the  year  in  which  he  gave  up  his  em 
ployment  as  agent  of  the  society  and 
established  his  paper  at  Eochester. 
Many  letters  from  Mr.  Douglass's  pen 
appeared  in  the  Liberator  during  this 
period. 

Mr.  Douglass's  own  memoirs  are  em 
braced  in  three  separate  volumes,  pub 
lished  at  wide  intervals,  each  succeeding 
volume  being  a  revision  of  the  preceding 
work,  with  various  additions  and  omis 
sions. 

I.  NARRATIVE  OF  FREDERICK  DOUG 
LASS.  Written  by  himself.  (Boston, 
1845 :  The  American  Anti-slavery  So- 


138  BIBLIOGEAPHY 

ciety. )  Numerous  editions  of  this  book 
were  printed,  and  translations  published 
in  Germany  and  in  France. 

II.  MY  BONDAGE  AND  MY  FREEDOM. 
(New  York  and  Auburn,  1855  :  Miller, 
Orton  &  Mulligan.)      This    second  of 
Mr.    Douglass's    autobiographies    has  a 
well-written  and  appreciative  introduc 
tion  by   James  M'Cune  Smith  and  an 
appendix  containing  extracts  from  Mr. 
Douglass's  speeches  on  slavery. 

III.  BECOLLECTTONS    OF    THE    ANTI- 
SLATERY    CONFLICT.      By    Samuel    J. 
May.     (Boston,    1869 :    Fields,    Osgood 
&  Co.)     Collected  papers  by  a  veteran 
abolitionist ;    contains    an   appreciative 
sketch  of  Douglass. 

IV.  HISTORY  OF  THE  EISE  AND  FALL 
OF  THE  SLAVE   POWER  IN  AMERICA. 
By  Henry  "Wilson.     3   vols.      (Boston, 
1872:   James  E.   Osgood  &   Co.)     The 
author  presents  an  admirable  summary 
of  the  life  and  mission  of  Mr.  Douglass. 


BIBLIOGEAPHY  139 

V.  WILLIAM    LLOYD    GARRISON    AND 
HIS      TIMES.       By     Oliver     Johnson. 
(Boston,     1881:     Houghton,    Mifflin  & 
Co.)     One  of   the  best  works   on   the 
anti-slavery    agitation,    by    one    of   its 
most  able,   active  and  courageous  pro 
moters. 

VI.  Century  Magazine,  November,  1881, 
"My  Escape  from  Slavery.''     By  Fred 
erick  Douglass. 

VII.  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  FREDERICK 
DOUGLASS.    Written  by  himself.     (Hart 
ford,  1882  :  Park  Publishing  Company.) 

VIII.  HISTORY   OF  THE  NEGRO  EACE 
IN  AMERICA.     By  George  W.  Williams. 
2  vols.     (New  York,  1883  :  G.  P.  Put 
nam's    Sons.)      This    exhaustive     and 
scholarly  work  contains  an  estimate  of 
Douglass's  career  by  an  Afro- American 
author. 

IX.  THE  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  WENDELL 
PHILLIPS.     By  George  Lowell  Austin. 


140  BIBLIOGEAPHY 

(Boston,  1888  :  Lee  &  Shepard. )  Con 
taining  a  eulogy  on  Wendell  Phillips 
by  Mr.  Douglass. 

X.  LIFE  AND  TIMES  OF  WILLIAM 
LLOYD  GARRISON.  By  his  children. 
4  vols.  (New  York,  1889  :  The  Century 
Company.  London  :  T.  Fisher  Unwin. ) 
Here  are  many  details  of  the  public 
services  of  Mr.  Douglass, — his  relations 
to  the  Garrisonian  abolitionists,  his  po 
litical  views,  his  oratory,  etc. 

XL  The  Cosmopolitan,  August,  1889. 
' i  Eeminiscences. 7 '  By  Frederick  Doug 
lass.  In  { l  The  Great  Agitation  Series. ' ' 

XII.  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS,  THE  COL 
ORED  ORATOR.  By  Frederick  May 
Holland.  (New  York,  1891 :  Funk  & 
Wagnalls. )  This  volume  is  one  of  the 
series  of  "  American  Beformers,"  and 
with  the  exception  of  his  own  books  is 
the  only  comprehensive  life  of  Douglass 
so  far  published.  It  contains  selections 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  141 

from  many  of  his  best  speeches  and   a 
full  list  of  his  numerous  publications. 

XIII.  Our  Day,  August,  1894.      "  Fred 
erick  Douglass  as  Orator  and  Reformer. ' ' 
By  W.  L.  Garrison. 

XIV.  THE   UNDERGROUND  RAILROAD. 
By  William  II.  Siebert.     With  an  intro 
duction  by  Albert  Bushnell  Hart.     (New 
York,  1898  :  The  Macmillan  Company. ) 
Contains  many  references  to  Mr.  Doug 
lass's  services  in  aiding  the  escape  of 
fugitive  slaves. 


THE  BEACON  BIOGRAPHIES. 

M.  A.  DEWOLFE  HOWE,  Editor. 

The  aim  of  this  series  is  to  furnish  brief,  read 
able,  and  authentic  accounts  of  the  lives  of  those 
Americans  whose  personalities  have  impressed 
themselves  most  deeply  on  the  character  and 
history  of  their  country.  On  account  of  the 
length  of  the  more  formal  lives,  often  running 
into  large  volumes,  the  average  busy  man  and 
woman  have  not  the  time  or  hardly  the  inclina 
tion  to  acquaint  themselves  with  American  bi 
ography.  In  the  present  series  everything  that 
such  a  reader  would  ordinarily  care  to  know  is 
given  by  writers  of  special  competence,  who 
possess  in  full  measure  the  best  contemporary 
point  of  view.  Each  volume  is  equipped  with 
a  frontispiece  portrait,  a  calendar  of  important 
dates,  and  a  brief  bibliography  for  further  read 
ing.  Finally,  the  volumes  are  printed  in  a  form 
convenient  for  reading  and  for  carrying  handily 
in  the  pocket. 

SMALL,  MAYNARD  &  COMPANY,  Publishers, 

6   BEACON  STREET,  BOSTON. 

[OVER.] 


THE  BEACON  BIOGRAPHIES 


The  following  volumes  are  the  first  issued:  — 

John  Brown,  by  JOSEPH  EDGAR  CHAMBERLIN. 
Phillips  Brooks,  by  the  EDITOR. 
Aaron  Burr,  by  HENRY  CHILDS  MERWIN. 
Frederick  Douglass,  by  CHARLES  W.  CHESNUTT. 
David   Glasgow  Farragut,  by  JAMES  BARNES. 
Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  by  Mrs.  JAMES  T.  FIELDS. 

Robert  E.  Lee,  by  W.  P.  TRENT. 

James  Russell  Lowell,  by  EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE,  J 

Thomas  Paine,  by  ELLERY  SEDGWICX. 

Daniel  Webster,  by  NORMAN  HAPGOOD. 

The  following  are  among  those  in  preparation:  — 

John  James  Audubon,  by  JOHN  BURROUGHS. 
Edwin  Booth,  by  CHARLES  TOWNSEND  COPELAND. 
James  Fenimore  Cooper,  by  W.  B.  SHUBRICK  CLYMEI 
Benjamin  Franklin,  by  LINDSAY  SWIFT. 
Sam  Houston,  by  SARAH  BARNWELL  ELLIOTT. 


SMALL,  MAYNARD  &  COMPANY,  Publishers. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWE] 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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